Long Way to Go
by letsgetshawarma
Summary: Gendry is a pizza boy. Arya is a fencer. The Starks have just relocated to King's Landing, but nothing is as it seems, and fate seems intent on throwing Arya and Gendry together time after time. Modern AU.
1. Chapter 1

Arya is upstairs, knee-deep in math homework the first time the doorbell rings. She doesn't bother to see who it is; most likely it's one of Sansa's girlfriends, here to gossip about the latest hot actor. Maybe they'll do their nails. They'll probably watch some reality TV, most likely that show about the Tyrells.

Arya could not care less about what the Tyrells do in their free time, and, unlike Sansa, she knows it's not reality at all. The whole thing is scripted. She's met Margaery Tyrell. She's not nearly as sassy in person.

Silently, she curses herself for becoming distracted from her math so easily. It would be a whole lot easier to get this done, Arya thinks, if it actually had an impact on her life, but math is useless. Math can't help her in a fight, nor can it change the fact that she has no influence over her own future. Math has no hold over the fact that Arya is going to grow up and get married and pop out a couple of kids. That's what's expected - no, demanded - of her, and that's what she'll do.

That's not what Arya wants, of course. Arya wants to go to the Olympics and lay a couple of Free Cities women flat with the point of her rapier. Arya wants to see the world, maybe ride all over Westeros on a motorcycle, or in a beat-up old pickup truck with Nymeria in the bed, panting and smiling in the sunshine. The last thing Arya wants is to get hitched to some guy and spend the rest of her life stuck in one place.

The second-to-last thing Arya wants is to do her math homework. But she can't go downstairs and practice her fencing until she's defeated the most nefarious of enemies, trigonometry. So she sits and grits her teeth and stares down at the impossible graphs and triangles on the desk in front of her, tapping her pencil irritably against the desk with increasing frequency until it flies out of her hand and into the wall.

Booming laughter sounds from downstairs, and Arya groans, because there is no way she can focus with loud, drunk Robert Baratheon anywhere in the vicinity. He has been visiting a lot lately, and though Arya understands very little of Robert's business, she isn't stupid. No one makes an hour-long drive this often for no reason. She knows he wants something from her father.

This is the third time Robert's shown up this week, and Arya intends to find out why. "Bran," she hisses down the hallway, but there is no response, and when she slips across the hall and into his room, her little brother is not there. The window is open, though, so it's clear where he has gone. Arya pokes her head out and squints up at him through the glaring autumn sunshine. "Mum'll kill you if she sees you," she informs him. Bran grins down at her, shrugs, and easily swings his way back down into his room.

"Mum doesn't have to know," he snickers, and Arya simply smiles and ruffles his shaggy auburn hair. "Robert's car is here again," Bran says, nudging his head toward the window.

"Robert is here again," groans Arya. "I'd like to know why, wouldn't you?"

"Business stuff," Bran says noncommittally. "And not any of ours."

"It is if it involves Dad," Arya tries.

"That's Dad's business, not ours," Bran reiterates with stubborn calmness

Arya glares at him with solemn grey eyes and folds her arms. "We're a family, right? We deserve to know what's going on." When Bran says nothing, just sits at his desk and turns toward a half-finished essay on his open laptop, Arya insists, "We're a pack, remember? We watch out for each other." Bran sighs, shuts the laptop, and fixes her with a calm blue gaze.

"You just want to get out of doing your trig, don't you?"

She smiles sheepishly back at him. "And I want to know what's going on," she says, pointedly ignoring the finished trig sheet on Bran's desk. Although he's two years younger than she is, they're in the same math class, and loathe though Arya is to admit it, Bran already understands much more of trigonometry than she does. He's a talented kid: he's good at just about everything, from math to writing to economics to history to photography. What he's best at, however, is climbing, which is what he's up to now.

He's out the window and halfway down the side of the old house's stone walls before Arya can even blink. She peers down after him as he skitters down the side of the house, a lanky fourteen-year-old spider, the master of his stony web. He knows every foothold, every questionable brick, and most importantly every blind spot in which he can lurk unnoticed by their mother. Arya gives him a mocking salute as he reaches the ground and rolls away into the dirt, darting away to hide amongst the bushes under their father Ned's study window.

Arya can see Robert from here, blowing cigar smoke out the open window and yammering away about something or other. Her father is a few feet behind him, but she can't see well enough to know how he's reacting. That's what Bran's there for, though. He'll have all the information back to her a minute after the conversation's ended, and no one will even know he's been there.

Arya is very grateful for Bran's many talents, she thinks as she nicks his completed trig homework and carries it back into her room. She only feels a light twinge of guilt for copying her brother's work. She wouldn't dream of plagiarizing anything important or unique, but this isn't an original idea. This is math. This is a series of numbers and formulas that Arya is never going to use, ever, no matter what Ms. Mordane says about the importance of triangles to everyday life. If Arya wanted to learn about triangles, she would have joined the orchestra and spent all day hitting a tiny metal one. She's good at hitting metal things.

She has managed to transfer half of Bran's homework to her own when the doorbell goes off again. This time it must be one of Sansa's friends. Robert's here already, and no one else ever shows up. Ever. Except, on one occasion, one of Bran's honor roll friends. Something Reed? Arya doesn't know. She's bad with names.

But then the doorbell rings again, and clearly no one's going to answer it, and Arya knows that Sansa is downstairs and thus much closer to the door than she is, so it can't be one of Sansa's friends. She would have gotten the door already.

Again the door sounds. "Arya!" Sansa screams.

"You get it!" Arya shouts back down.

"I got the last one," Sansa calls.

"That's hardly my fault," Arya points out. "You're a lot closer. Just get the damn door."

"Language," their mother chastises her from downstairs, somewhere very near Sansa. Arya groans and drags a hand through her shoulder-length brown hair. The both of them are down there refusing to get the door, then. "Arya," Catelyn says with a mixture of sweetness and matriarchal iron, "come down and get the door. Your sister and I are busy."

Arya has enough experience with 'your sister and I are busy' to know that this means spa time with pasty facial masks and unexplainable slices of cucumber, so she yells, "Coming," slides down the banister, and pulls open the door, fully expecting Something Reed or Jeyne Poole or any of Sansa's vapid cheerleading friends.

The last thing Arya expects to find is a pizza boy, practically invisible behind an impossibly high stack of greasy cardboard boxes. "I didn't order any pizza," she says, raising one quizzical eyebrow.

"Of course you didn't," the boy snorts, "I just drove an hour out of our normal delivery zone for fun." He peers around the pizza boxes and takes her in with piercing blue eyes. "You're absolutely not who I talked to on the phone, though, so yeah. You didn't order any pizza. Someone here did, though."

"You drove an hour out of your normal delivery zone?" Arya scoffs. "Why?"

"Because I was promised a very nice tip, Nosy," the boy says, "but I do have other deliveries to make, so if you could help me get these inside and find me a man with a loud laugh and a large wallet I'd be a very happy man."

A loud laugh and a large wallet. Arya grimaces. "I know just the guy," she tells the boy as she takes four boxes off his hands and leads him inside. First he shows up repeatedly, then he's having secret conversations with her father in the kitchen, and now he's placating them all with pizza. Robert is one hundred percent, absolutely up to something. Arya wishes she had some way to summon Bran immediately there to tell her what he's already found out, but her brother's not a dog, despite how frequently he does manage to come when called. Instead she chews her lip and makes her way into the kitchen, where she sets the pizza boxes down on the table.

The boy sets his five boxes down next to hers, and only then does she get a good look at him: he's much taller than she is, though that's not saying much, with spiky black hair and eyes so blue they rival the crisp autumn sky. A rough black stubble dots his cheeks, but she can still clearly make out his strong jawline. Arya thanks any and all gods she can think of that Sansa's eyes are currently obscured by cucumbers; this is exactly the kind of boy over which Sansa tends to swoon.

His eyes wander over toward Arya, flicker down to the nine pizzas on the table, and then back up toward her. "So are you hiding an army in here or...?" Arya stares at him, completely befuddled for a moment before she realizes he's joking about the mass amounts of food for what seems, to him at least, a very sparsely populated household. As she searches for something suitably witty to quip back at him, her phone buzzes against her thigh, and she automatically pulls it out to look.

It's from Bran. Dad's taking a job with Robert, it says. Arya has barely finished reading the first message when the phone vibrates again in her hand. We're all moving to King's Landing. Arya isn't sure which appalls her more: the fact that Bran capitalizes proper nouns in text messages or the idea that she's moving south into a busy, overpopulated city.

"I'm assuming you're rallying the troops, then," the pizza boy says, and when Arya glances up at him, he's smirking bemusedly down at her.

"Attending to business, yeah," Arya says lamely. "The troops rally themselves to the smell of pepperoni."

"Pepperoni?" Bran asks as he hops in through the kitchen window. Arya silently wonders why so many windows in the house are open. "I came for the olives and mushrooms. And to get my trig homework back." Arya blushes, puts a finger to her lips, and motions toward the door, where Sansa and Catelyn are sitting and most likely eavesdropping.

Bran, in a rare display of youthfulness, sticks his tongue out at her and studies the pizza boy. "King's Landing," he says, crossing the kitchen to face the boy from the front. "Long way to come to deliver some pizza."

"You're telling me," the boy says, somewhat impatiently. He's driven an hour further than he should have had to in order to deliver nine pizzas, and now he's been forced to stay much longer than usual because Robert, who ordered the pizzas, is nowhere to be found.

Sansa wanders into the kitchen then, cucumber-less but still covered in a bluish cream. She squeals like a threatened pig when she sees the boy and scurries out as quickly as she came in, and Arya stifles a snicker behind one hand. The pizza boy raises one eyebrow, but this clearly isn't the weirdest thing he's witnessed on a delivery.

Only when Summer and Nymeria trot in, tongues lolling out of their massive lupine mouths between wild, grinning fangs, does he begin to look even remotely fazed. "Look, I really need to get back or my boss is going to skin me..." he says uncomfortably, his eyes flitting back and forth from the pair of wolf-dogs to their respective human owners.

"Of course," Bran says politely, squinting at the tiny black name-tag on the boy's chest. "Jen...dree?"

"Gendry," the boy corrects. "Hard G."

"Gendry," Bran echoes, and then whistles shrilly into two fingers. Arya wonders when exactly he developed that talent. He's certainly never whistled to call their family members before, though it works like a charm now: Sansa returns, fresh-faced but without any makeup, much to her dismay, shortly followed by their mother, father, and Robert. Rickon is the last to trail in, with the dazed, bleary look he always gets in his eyes when he's been playing war video games for too long.

"Ah! Pizza!" Robert booms, and claps Gendry on the back. Rickon brightens up and scampers over to the table, pulling a slice from the topmost box with no regard for its flavor nor the fact that the pizza has yet to be paid for. Gendry doesn't even protest, just sighs and gazes resignedly at Robert, who is drawing a crisp one-hundred dragon note from his expensive leather wallet. "Best place in King's Landing," Robert tells Ned with an over-exaggerated wink that is clearly for the children's benefit. Arya might have found it funny ten or even five years ago, but she's sixteen now, and Robert's melodrama is now just a sad cliche that accompanies his loud voice. Robert pulls another note of a similarly significant amount and thrusts it into Gendry's chest. "And there is your tip," he says, as if he's just bestowed a grand gift upon the pizza guy. "For all your hard work, and for driving all the way out here."

Gendry gives him a look but accepts the money, tucking it into the pocket of his black pants, and Arya senses a strange, almost familiar sort of animosity between them. "Thank you, ser," Gendry says tersely, and then turns to go.

"Arya, show him to the door," Catelyn suggests. Arya blinks in disbelief. She let the guy in and showed him the way into the kitchen. She's sure he can find his way back to the front door. But her mother is fixing her with the kind of stern, icy glare that she usually reserves for when Arya flings food at Sansa during dinner, so she grudgingly pushes past Gendry and heads out toward the front walkway. She can hear him following behind her, his footsteps heavy against the ground. She gestures toward the front door as mockingly graciously as she can, and he cracks a smile for the first time since Robert came in.

There's a stiff sort of silence between the pair, punctuated by the lack of conversation in the nearby kitchen. Someone - most likely Catelyn - clears her throat, and Arya sighs and holds out her hand. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Gendry," she drawls, despising the pleasantries even as they spew from your mouth. "Thank you for coming all this way."

"Right," he says, and shakes her hand with one eyebrow still cocked quizzically. "You're welcome. It was nice meeting you, Arya...?"

"Stark," she finishes for him, and his hand freezes in hers. Not for the first time, Arya hates how her family name gets around.

"Well, Arya Stark," Gendry says, hastily withdrawing his hand and shoving it deep into his pocket. He bows his head slightly and steps out the door. "I hope you enjoy your pizza."

"Hope it was worth your long-ass drive," Arya calls cheerily.

Catelyn's voice rings clearly down the hallway. "Language!"

Despite herself, Arya grins.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: I'm probably going to update about once a week. I have several chapters lined up right now, but I don't want to post them all at once and then end up not posting for a couple months as I get settled into college. This is going to start off pretty slow, but things are going to get far more interesting very soon... Reviews are much appreciated, and if anyone seems out of character or just poorly written in any way, let me know and I'll do what I can to fix it!**

The Red Keep, as Robert's mansion is so called, is roughly three times the size of Arya's home in Winterfell, and oh, is it red. Arya has never seen bricks so thoroughly rust-colored. "It's from the wind off the sea," Bran informs her knowledgeably, when he notices her staring at the dusty scarlet walls. Arya nods absently; she doesn't really care why things are the way they are, she's mostly just awed by the fact that they exist. She can't imagine building anything so massive as the Red Keep. Before they arrived, she could hardly imagine there even being something so large.

Now the whole Stark family, minus Robb, Jon, and foster child Theon, who are all off at university, stands in the immense front hall of the Red Keep, anxiously awaiting Robert's welcome. They were let in by a bald butler clad in a violet suit, but the man has since disappeared altogether, almost as if he melted into the walls. Arya stands, tense and uncomfortable, in between Sansa and Bran. "This is impolite," she hears Sansa mutter to their mother, but Catelyn shushes her with a pointed look. Arya bites her lip and continues to study the architecture: the height of the ceiling, the arches that support the upper floors, the tall stone columns that line the hall. It's strangely empty, the great hall, and Arya wonders if it serves any purpose other than to intimidate all those who enter it.

"Ned!" Robert's voice booms from their right, and the large man swaggers up to them. A tall, beautiful blonde woman strides confidently behind him on four-inch heels. A trio of teens with wavy blonde hair follow and come to stand beside their parents. "So glad you could make it," Robert says cheerily, smacking Ned across the back heartily. Arya notices a ruddy tone to his cheeks and decides that, although it's only four p.m., the fat man has already started drinking. "Cersei!"

Robert's wife steps up next to him and nods curtly to Catelyn. There is a small smile on her face, but it's the kind of smile that betrays no real happiness or friendliness. It's an expression that has been carefully schooled into existence, pulled and pressed into cold perfection. "You look lovely," she says, and Catelyn smiles back at her with only a little more warmth.

"As do you," Catelyn returns, and then gestures to her children. "I believe last time we saw one another, the children were all at school. Sansa?" The tall redhead steps forward and bows her head shyly, her blue eyes focused intently on the oldest of the Baratheon children. Arya can practically feel her sister blushing; if she weren't in such a formal setting, she'd roll her eyes. As it is, she steps forward, smirks, and dips into a clumsy, intended-to-be-ironic curtsy when Catelyn introduces her. Bran follows with a polite bow, and Rickon finishes with a muttered "nice t'meet you" and a hurried nod of his head.

"Charmed," Cersei says in a manner that indicates that she isn't charmed in the slightest. "This is Joffrey, my firstborn." The oldest of the three children, a tall young man with lips that remind Arya of worms, steps forward, takes Sansa's hand, and kisses her fingers. A small squeak escapes Sansa's mouth, and Arya actually gags. "Myrcella, my only daughter," Cersei says next, and the girl, who looks to be about Bran's age, bends into a perfect and completely serious curtsy, her golden curls bouncing around her face. "And Tommen, my youngest," Cersei concludes fondly, and the young boy, who can be no older than Rickon, smiles and waves shyly. "I'm sure you children will all get along splendidly."

"Yes, sure," Robert says gruffly, clearly as bored by the introductions as Arya is but far more vocal about it. "Ned, listen, I've got some stuff to talk to you about. Come with me to my office." It's not a question, but rather a command, which Arya is dismayed to find that her father obeys without a second thought. "And woman-" This is directed at Cersei. Arya feels a sudden upsurge of loathing for the man. "Show Mrs. Stark and the kids to their new house."

Cersei's carefully-maintained smile slips for only a moment before she regains her composure, catches Catelyn's eye, and stalks off down the length of the hall with her children trailing after her. Like a set of prim, prissy ducklings, Arya thinks, and chuckles mildly to herself as she trots after them beside Bran. "What's so funny?" he asks.

"Three little ducklings, all in a row," she laughs. Bran merely cocks an eyebrow, and Arya suppresses a sigh. Jon would have thought it was funny, but Jon is off at university having the time of his life, while Arya is stuck in the Red Keep with only her remaining siblings and a trio of baby ducks for company.

She contents herself with picturing Joffrey waddling and quacking away, even as he strikes up a conversation with Sansa and slides his arm around her waist.

The Starks' new abode is a "pool house" which is probably larger than most of the regular houses in King's Landing. Arya's room is on the second story, across the hall from Bran's just as it was at home in Winterfell. Unlike the Red Keep itself, the pool house is wooden and painted white. It almost reminds Arya of her snowy, wintery home, but the salty sea breeze, the humidity and the sunshine keep that "almost" from becoming any more than that.

Arya passes the day trying, and failing, to write the English essay assigned by the junior English teacher at King's Landing High. It is yet another ultimatum of her mother's: this time she can't fence until she's written, at the very least, a proper outline of her paper. When Sansa pokes her nose into Arya's room and sees her seated cross-legged on the bed with a laptop, she groans aloud. "It's a Saturday night," she points out. "What are you doing inside?"

"Homework," Arya answers.

"It's a Saturday," Sansa repeats, wrinkling her nose. "We're living in a famous person's backyard. We're in the big city. We could be doing fun things, like going to parties and meeting more famous people, like... like, we could be meeting Loras Tyrell right now, you know? He's family friends with the Baratheons, Joff told me..."

"By all means, go do 'fun things,'" Arya says, without looking up from her work. "You don't need me."

"You're no fun anyway," Sansa says irritably. "Buzzkill."

"Right. Close the door on your way out," Arya sighs.

"Don't say I never tried to make you a normal person," Sansa mutters.

"My regards to all the famous people you're so clearly going to meet on your first night in King's Landing," Arya calls as Sansa retreats.

Sansa does not, in fact, meet any famous people, other than Joffrey, who, as she tells Arya repeatedly the following day, is definitely going to be very famous very soon. "He looks like a movie star," Sansa sighs dreamily. "He's going places, I tell you."

Arya hates having to listen to her sister drivel on about the guy. She knows it's just because Sansa's friends are all back in Winterfell, and Sansa has no other girls to talk to, but Arya doesn't want to hear about everything Joffrey's ever eaten and said and thought. She doesn't want to hear another word about Robert's son, actually, and she tells Sansa so. "I don't see what's so great about him, Sansa," she says.

"Well, let me tell you," Sansa gushes. "He's got that beautiful blonde hair, like, there's sunlight on his head, and he's got such pretty eyes, and such nice cheekbones, and those lips, oh Gods..."

"His lips look like worms," Arya snorts, and squirms on the couch.

Sansa pays her no heed. "Oh, you have no idea the things I would do to kiss those lips, Arya, you have no idea."

"I actually do have some idea, since you've brought it up about five times in the past twenty minutes," Arya snaps, and jumps up from the couch, slamming her laptop closed. She starts for the door, leaving the computer on the coffee table.

"Where are you going?" Sansa squeaks.

"Out," Arya answers, because truly, she has no idea where she's headed. All she knows is that she cannot stay in this room with Sansa, pouring out her every thought and feeling about a boy she's hardly met, any longer than she already has.

"Mum won't like that," Sansa pouts. "It's almost time to eat, you know, and we're supposed to have supper with the Baratheons and-"

Arya closes the door behind her and runs.

She's always preferred fencing to all other sports, because it belongs solely to her, but running is a close second, and it's an easy escape. Arya hasn't run for what feels like weeks and now, as her legs pump beneath her, she's struggling to find her niche. She isn't paying attention to where she's going: what's important is that she's going at all, that she isn't sedentary on a couch listening to Sansa go on about Joffrey, that she isn't lost in an essay she cares nothing about. She's moving, and she's in charge of her own motion. She's independent and she's free.

When a red light finally forces her to stop and Arya turns around to see how far she's come, she can barely make out the Red Keep, looming as a dusty crimson shadow far away up the road. She turns back toward the light and jogs in place, waiting for the DON'T to disappear from the DON'T WALK sign.  
That's when she sees it, a set of glowing letters, illuminating painted ones on the glass beneath. Glowing, in white: REC CENTER; and painted, in black: FENCING STUDIO. Arya jogs across the intersection and into the building, enchanted, and takes it all in. It's primarily a bowling alley, currently decked in brilliant lights, with blaring '80s rock music for what a poster on the wall proclaims is 'Cosmic Bowling.' There's an arcade, full of over-eager kids and hyperactive preteens, and a miniature diner that apparently serves pizza and hot dogs and not much else. A white, closed door with a similar black script across it is what catches Arya's attention, though, and she makes a beeline right for it.

"You need something?" a deep voice calls out as she comes close to the door.

"Pizza boy?" Arya gasps incredulously as she whirls to face the voice and finds that it belongs to a face she already knows.

The boy makes a face and crosses his arms. "Oh, for the love of the gods," he mutters. "Arya Stark?"

"The very same," she says, and saunters over to him. He's behind a counter, with a rack of bowling shoes on his left and a rack with practice rapiers to his right. "What do I have to do to get into that fencing studio?"

"Couldn't you just buy your own?" he asks. Arya frowns, angry that he's making cracks at her upper-class heritage, but then she sees the twinkle in his eye. He's laughing. If there weren't a counter separating them, she would push him, or punch him.

But there's a short wall, a desk, and a pair of bowling balls separating them, so instead she rolls her eyes and says, "Believe me, I've tried."

"What's a rich girl want with a fencing studio, anyway?" Gendry asks.

"I fence. That's what I do. I'm a fencer," Arya replies. "What have you got there?"

Gendry glances down at a bent rapier in his hands and then shrugs and holds it up for her to see. "Busted," he says nonchalantly.

"Clearly," Arya agrees. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Take it out back and fix it," he says.

Arya laughs, a short, clipped, bark of a laugh. "You're going to fix it?"

"Yes."

"You? Fix it?"

"Is there something wrong with me?" Gendry challenges her, all the laughter gone from his eyes.

"No, no," Arya says hurriedly, "it's just that, well... you're a pizza boy."

"And you're a little girl," he responds sharply.

"I am not," Arya snaps, hating that she has to look up to meet his gaze. She's not particularly tall, but she's not particularly short either; it's just that Gendry's some kind of height monster. He's easily eight inches taller than she is, and she doesn't like it one bit. She hates being talked down to. And she absolutely despises being called little. "I'm a fencer," she insists.

"And I'm an armorer," Gendry says wryly. "See, we both aren't what we immediately seem."

Arya opens her mouth to say something else to him, but finds that her tongue can't form any sort of intelligent or witty response. "Stupid," she mutters.

"What?"

"Nothing. What's a pizza boy doing working in a rec center?"

"Armory," Gendry corrects her.

"Ah, yes. You've got some really gnarly weapons here. I'm really threatened by those shoes," Arya teases, and he finally cracks a smile again as he polishes a far-less-bent rapier. "Are the shoelaces likely to strangle me?"

"Only if you keep talking this much," Gendry tells her, a smile tugging at one corner of his lips.

"Funny, but you didn't answer my question."

He looks up at her with sharp blue eyes, sets the sword down on the counter, and leans over to look at her. "You're awfully nosy, aren't you? I remember that from when I dropped off those pizzas, too. So many questions." Arya blushes and shakes her head, about to argue that no, she is not nosy, she just has a healthy curiosity in, well... everything, when Gendry continues.. "Uh-huh. Sure," he laughs, and then explains, "I work two jobs. It's not so uncommon."

Arya is about to protest that where she comes from, that is uncommon, when he continues: "And speaking of working, I have work to do. What do you want?"

"I want to fence," she confesses. "I haven't in a couple days. I've been cooped up inside a moving van and then a god-awful pool-house with my idiot sister, and my brother is apparently incapable of staying off the roof, and everyone is a bunch of intolerable twats."

Gendry holds up his hands peaceably. "You'd better put a leash on that mouth of yours, little girl, there are children present."

"I'm going to include you on my list of intolerable twats," she mutters sulkily.

"And I'm going to go home," he concludes, glancing up at a clock on the wall. "Shift's over, fencing studio's closed on Sundays, and I have a short, dark-haired headache to sleep off."

For a second, Arya is furious, but once again she notices he's laughing, and as he removes his "King's Landing Rec" baseball cap, ruffles his black hair, and pushes through the counter door and past her, he actually gives her a playful wink.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: Thank you so much for all the reviews/views/favorites/follows/general interactions with this story! I'm sorry this update is a day-ish late, I've been really busy moving in and settling in at college. This chapter is a rare one, in that it's not from Arya or Gendry's POV, so I hope you enjoy a brief but totally necessary interlude of Bran!**

Chapter Three.

They've been in King's Landing for a week now, and though Bran has scaled countless walls and sat on what feels like very possible corner of the roof, he's certain that there are still some nooks and crannies that he has yet to explore.

And so, once he gets home from school on Thursday afternoon, he waves goodbye to Arya as she starts off for the rec center, hops up the stairs two at a time, and immediately crawls out the window and down the side of the pool-house. In a flash, he's across the yard and up the wall he's taken to starting off with. Bran is already familiar with the old red bricks of this particular wall; it's rougher than the others, since it faces away from the ocean and thus isn't confronted by so much windborne sand. There are more handholds on this wall, more dents and miniature cliffs that he can grab onto, and as such it's much easier to climb.

Not that Bran needs things to be easy in order to climb them. On the contrary, he loves a challenge, and he doesn't find challenges often. Currently, he's daring himself to scale every wall in the Red Keep, which is a fairly daunting task given the size and shape of the mansion. It has more wings than any house could ever possibly use, and more abandoned hallways and empty rooms than occupied ones. Half the time, Bran feels like he's exploring the Beast's castle from Beauty and the Beast, like at any given moment a candelabra will jump out at him and start singing in a Pentoshi accent. The other half, he reminds himself that he's not a child anymore. He's fourteen years old, and he shouldn't be thinking of life as a cartoon any longer.

Bran hoists himself up onto a windowsill and casts one casual glance down at the ground, fifty or sixty feet below him. If his mother catches him up here, he's screwed beyond belief, but Catelyn is nowhere to be seen, and he remembers something about her taking Rickon to rugby tryouts. Bran chuckles softly to himself: the idea of his baby brother tackling another twelve-year-old for a ball isn't all that wild, but the idea of Catelyn encouraging such brutal behavior is ridiculous.

He surveys the grounds below him and takes a better look at the mansion. Where hasn't he gone yet? He's been up this wall and that wall, has perched on that window, has taken a nap on that section of the roof... but he's never been up to that tower. Or is it a turret? The Red Keep seems much more like a castle than a mansion, and Bran occasionally wonders if it were built a long, long time ago for a king or a duke, rather than a rich businessman-politician like Robert Baratheon.

The tower is calling to him, and he knows he needs to get over there and investigate, so away he goes, pulling himself from brick to brick, shuffling sideways over the wall until he comes to the base of the turret. From there, it's a brief stretch of steep, sloping diagonal bricks, and then he's at and through a window.

In the tower is an office, and in the office is a desk, cluttered with papers held down only by a brass, hand-shaped paperweight. Bran doesn't touch those, simply leaves the window a bit further open behind him and slips inside to pace the floor. There are a couple old paintings on the walls, but they aren't of anything Bran recognizes.  
And then he sees the photo.

It's partially hidden by the papers on the desk, but it's in a demure silver frame, so it's raised ever so slightly off the desk. Bran brushes the dust and papers away and picks it up, and has to bite down hard on his tongue to keep from letting out an obscenely loud laugh. Bran whips out his phone and fires a text over to Arya: "You are not going to believe what I've just found."

In the picture is a much younger Ned, with his dark hair swooped over grey eyes ringed by more eyeliner than Bran has ever seen, even on Sansa. Next to him is a tall, muscular black-haired man that it takes Bran a minute to recognize as Robert. He's holding a black-and-white electric guitar and, like Ned, has a lot of black makeup on his face. His hair is shaggy, falling nearly to his shoulders, and he looks sincerely angry, though he doesn't seem to be angry at anything in particular. On Ned's other side is an older-looking guy, with much shorter hair and twinkling blue eyes. He doesn't have any makeup on his eyes, but he is wearing black lipstick. Seated in front of them all is a younger man with one spiky earring, long, wavy blonde hair, a deep black v-neck, and a roaring lion tattooed across his chest. The other three are wearing beat-up black t-shirts emblazoned with THE REBELLION, leather jackets, and pants that are far too tight for comfort.

"Probably not, what'd you find?" comes Arya's reply.

Bran snaps a picture of the photograph and sends it over to her with the caption "Seeing is believing."

"THEY WERE IN A ROCK BAND?!1!" Bran can just picture Arya, hooting over this while she's doing whatever it is that she does down at the rec center.

"The Rebellion, apparently," Bran texts back, "I feel like I might even have heard of them."

"Gendry has, omg what is this WHY DIDN'T WE KNOW ABOUT THIS EARLIER," Arya responds.

"More importantly, why are you hanging out with the pizza guy?" Bran can only assume it's the same boy who delivered their pizza the night that Ned agreed to move the family to King's Landing. How many people in King's Landing, or, seven hells, in _any place _can there possibly be with the name Gendry? It's not all that common a name.

"Works at the rec center," Arya answers noncommittally. "GODS I CANT BREATHE THO LOOK AT DADS GUYLINER."

"Look at his HAIR, Arya," Bran snickers as he sends the text back, but then he hears footsteps coming up the stairs toward the office, so he tucks the phone back into his pocket, hops out the window, and pulls himself up to perch above it.

He can't see anything from where he is, but he can hear. It's a man and a woman, that much is clear. The woman's voice has the cold sincerity of Cersei, but the man's voice is unfamiliar. It's deep, and very masculine, but it's fairly quiet. It certainly isn't Robert. "I don't think we'll find anything up here, Cersei," the man is saying.

"We're not supposed to _find _anything," she replies coldly. "We're planting something, so that someone else can find it later. Varys, hopefully."

"He'd know it was us. The man... oh, seven hells, he's been castrated, right? Doesn't that make him not a-"

"Jaime." Bran sucks in a sharp breath. _Jaime. Cersei's twin brother._

"He's too smart, is what I'm saying," the man finishes. "He'd probably know that whatever it is that we're planting was planted."

Cersei makes a small, disappointed noise that, had it come from a man, Bran would have considered a grunt. As it is, it's more of an effeminate disgruntled squeak.

"I don't see why we can't just hire the Hound to take him out like we did Jon Arryn," Jaime continues. "Varys still hasn't got a clue about that, and it's been months. He'd never know about this either."

"Damn him," she mutters. "We can't use the Hound for everything. Now, think: who else would even come snooping around up here?"

"You mean besides us?" Jaime teases.

"Yes, _Jaime_, besides us," Cersei snaps, her voice dripping venom. Whereas Jaime's tone is bright with levity, hers is fraught with frustration and even anger. "Seven hells, we don't even have to work hard. Look at the state of his desk. I can't imagine why Robert wanted him."

Bran hears one of them pick something up off the desk, and then Jaime says, "We're old friends, remember?"

Cersei snorts and Bran hears her snatch whatever it is away from Jaime's grasp. "I thought we had all of these photos burned," she hisses.

"You used to find it attractive," Jaime reminds her. "You used to beg me to put on that stupid leather jacket, just so you could tear it back off me again."

Bran freezes atop the window. Just what is he hearing? "Twenty years ago," scoffs Cersei, but her voice is far less cold now. She's starting to give into Jaime's playfulness, and Bran hears a muffled noise that sounds vaguely like skin brushing against skin.

"And eighteen. It was the same the night we conceived Joffrey. You took my earring out with your teeth-" Bran fumbles for his phone in his pocket, knowing that this is vitally important, and that he should find some way to record it. He has an app for this, he's sure of it, but he just can't find it.

"I remember. That blasted earring, I cut my lip. Look, Jaime, we need to..."

"And fourteen years ago, for Myrcella, you couldn't keep your hands out of my hair, it was still long..." Bran shakes his head, furious at himself for being unable to find one simple app, and instead starts typing out a message to Arya: "Joff and the rest are Jaime's kids, Jaime and Cersei are up to something, trying to plant something in Dad's office, something about a dog I think they killed Jon Arryn," but he doesn't send it. There must be more. _What are they trying to place on Dad? _Bran wonders, but Cersei and Jaime aren't providing the answers. They're lost in a very different sort of ecstasy.

Cersei moans a little in pleasure, but there's still a certain resistance to her voice as she says, "Yes, I remember that too."

"And twelve, for Tommen, you kept running your tongue over the tattoo..."

Bran drops his phone and watches helplessly as it skitters away down the side of the tower. He scrambles after it and recovers it, but even as his fingers close around it he hears Cersei cut Jaime off and hiss, "Did you hear something?" Jaime merely grunts his assent, and then Bran sees the man poke his head out the window, just as Bran hurriedly shoves his phone back into his pocket. Jaime is very clearly the blonde from the front of the photo, though he's older now, with shorter hair and a more mature set to his jaw. He's laid eyes on Bran, and he grabs him by the ankle and yanks him back up toward the window. "Brandon," Cersei greets him coolly, hastily pulling the top few buttons of her shirt back together and tugging at the hem of her skirt.

"Oh, is this one of Ned's?" Jaime asks lightly, switching his grip from Bran's ankle to his wrist and grabbing at Bran's face with his other hand. "What are you up to, young Stark?"

"Climbing," Bran says truthfully.

"Right," Jaime says. "Where have you been climbing?"

"Everywhere," Bran tells him. It's not a lie.

"Everywhere," Jaime echoes, and turns to look at Cersei with a malicious smirk on his face.

"He knows," Cersei mouths, and Bran shakes his head for only a moment before Jaime sighs, releases his grip on Bran's wrist, and holds Bran gingerly by the collar.

"The things I do for love," Bran hears Jaime say, almost wistfully, and then he lets Bran go and Bran is falling, falling, falling, plummeting toward the harsh hot ground.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **

**As always, thanks so much for all the reviews and favorites! This week brings us back to Arya's POV and contains an absolutely shameless Princess Bride reference. I only feel a little bit guilty.**

Chapter Four.

Arya sits and fidgets in the waiting room, opening and closing her phone anxiously. _Click. _Open. _Click. _Close. _Click. _Open. _Click. _Close. _Click. _Open. _Click._

"Would you stop that?" Sansa whispers irritably. Arya mumbles something akin to "sorry" and instead shifts her phone from hand to hand. Left to right. Right to left. Left to right. It only makes an almost inaudible slapping sound as it passes from palm to palm. Sansa is visibly less annoyed.

"What's wrong with him?" she hears Rickon ask their father, but Ned only shakes his head. He doesn't know either. No one knows. Catelyn is the only one inside the operating room - one visitor and one visitor only, as the surgeon insisted - and even she probably doesn't know what's going on. All that anyone knows is that Bran fell, from very, very high up.

So high up that he shouldn't even be alive right now. The doctors have told them repeatedly how lucky he is to be breathing.

That doesn't make Arya feel any less guilty, though. She knows he must have fallen in the middle of texting her. She knows it's her fault for diverting his attention. She knows Bran would never have fallen if he hadn't been distracted. She knows it's her fault for continuing to text him even when she knew he was climbing, and should have been focusing on that particularly dangerous activity. She knows all of this, but she doesn't tell anyone. Catelyn would never forgive her, and she's on thin enough ice with her mother already. Rickon would scream and kick and probably even bite her. Sansa would hate her forever. And Ned... she couldn't face her father, if he knew she was responsible for this.

Because he wouldn't be angry. Arya knows he wouldn't be angry. He would simply be disappointed, and he would look at her with those stern grey eyes and she wouldn't be sixteen anymore, she'd be six years old, or maybe six months old. She'd be reduced to dust and tears - salt and water and nothing more - in front of him, and she can't stand to be reduced to anything less than she is now.

So here she sits, fidgeting and waiting for Catelyn to emerge from the O.R. and tell them that everything is okay, that Bran will be just fine, that nothing bad has happened, maybe he has a concussion but that's fine, that's not too serious, right? People recover from concussions, people who have concussions come out just fine, they turn out perfectly all right. "Arya," says Ned quietly, and she looks up at him sharply. "You're hyperventilating," he says as gently as he can, and she takes a deep breath.

_Bran is fine, _she tells herself, and that becomes her mantra. _Bran is fine. Bran is fine._

She doesn't know how long it is before Catelyn comes out, a grave look on her face, and whispers a few solemn words to Ned. Then Ned calls all the children close to him, and they huddle together as they once did during a winter many years ago when the heating cut out. "He'll live," Ned says first, his arms around Rickon and Arya. Sansa sniffs gratefully where she stands between Arya and Catelyn. "But," Ned amends, "he's never going to walk again."

Sansa gasps. Rickon blinks and shakes his head, not comprehending. Arya simply closes her eyes. This is the same as killing Bran, she knows. Everything Bran did, he did with either his brain or his legs. He was always climbing, always running, always kicking around a football or riding his bike. Even when he was sitting down to do his homework or edit his photos, he was swinging a leg under his chair, constantly in motion, scaling mountains in his mind even when he wasn't climbing in real life. "Are they sure?" Arya asks, and is only a little surprised to find that the words catch in her throat.

Ned nods. "He's paralyzed from the waist down," Catelyn tells them. "I need you all to do your best to keep him happy. These next few months of adjusting are going to be absolutely miserable for him, so we need to ease them as much as possible."

"How are we supposed to keep him happy if he can't _do _anything?" Sansa asks, and Arya wants to punch her. Bran can do things. He just can't do any of the things that he used to.

"I don't know," their mother shakes her head sadly. "We can try and call his friends from back home down here for the weekends. Gods know, we certainly have the room to house them. Ned, Robert wouldn't mind, would he?" Ned shakes his head somberly, and pulls away from the rest of his family to make a call to Robert and clarify. "Arya, you know who Bran's friends with, don't you?"

If circumstances were any less severe, Arya would question aloud just _what _made her mother think she knew anything more about Bran's life than Sansa or Rickon, but as it is, she simply nods meekly. "Reed. Something Reed."

"Something?" Sansa echoes weakly.

"I'll find him on Facebook," Arya assures her, and she too pulls back.

She doesn't know how to make her brother happy in his current miserable state, but she'll be damned if she isn't going to try.

Arya considers taking Bran and the not one but _two _Reeds who answered her call to the Rec Center, but then she realizes that Bran would only get more depressed. He can't bowl. He can't fence. He could play some of the arcade games, but his shortened height in his wheelchair would prevent him from being able to see most of them. Arya doesn't want to make her brother feel any worse than he already does, and though the Reeds' presence, particularly the girl's, seems to put him at ease, the last thing Arya wants is to contribute to Bran's misery.

She settles for taking them all for pizza, because everyone, regardless of their ability to use their legs, enjoys a good round of cheese, grease, and garlic bread. And so it is that Arya coerces Sansa into driving Arya, Bran, and both the Reeds downtown to what Robert cheerfully insisted was the "best pizza joint in King's Landing."

Once they're seated, with plastic menus propped up in front of them atop a waxy checkered tablecloth, Arya does her best to strike up an active conversation. "So, you guys know Bran from class, yeah?"

"He was in my AP English class, yeah," the girl says brightly. "Beat us all senseless with adjectives, didn't you, Bran? No one knew what to make of you. Youngest kid in the class, and put us all in our places with that first essay of his. I think the teacher still has it pinned to the board, even though you've transferred." Arya makes a mental note to actually remember her name, since she's worth having around. Meera. Meera Reed.

Bran smiles weakly and absently runs a finger over the menu. "You're a right genius, you know," the male Reed points out. Arya tries her best to remember his name: Jackson? Jason? Jonathan? Jojen. That's it. "Kids your age aren't supposed to be in trig."

"No one is supposed to be in trig," Arya joins in. "Honestly, what use is trig?"

"Actually," Jojen cuts in, "it's applicable to a lot of professions. Like, if you were to go into architecture, you would..."

Arya thanks any and all gods that she can think of that the waiter shows up at that moment. "Hi," he says, his blue eyes on the pad in his hand, "can I take your - seriously?" He's looking up now, but his eyes are on Arya alone. "I'm starting to think you're stalking me."

"I'm treating my brother to what we've been informed is the 'best pizza in King's Landing,'" Arya says. "No stalking involved."

"Gendry," Bran remembers.

"Oh, are we all acquainted?" Meera asks.

"He delivered pizza for us in Winterfell once," Bran explains.

"Long way to go," Meera observes.

"Tell me about it," Gendry groans. "What can I get you kids?"

"We're not kids!" Arya argues. Gendry simply gives her a weather eye and turns to Bran, pen cocked readily against the pad of paper. Bran recites his order, and so it goes around the table until it comes full circle to Arya, who stares defiantly back up at Gendry. "Personal-sized pepperoni with olives," she says, her voice tight, "and a cherry Coke."

"As you wish," he says with a grin, and disappears.

"Stalking?" asks Bran with a sly smirk. It's the first time since he fell that he's ventured to a facial expression other than self-pity and the feeble, depressed shade of a smile he's offered to everyone who's come to visit him. "You did mention you were with him the other day, when..." And just like that, the smile fades from his face. Arya hates how easily he's reminded of what happened.

"He works at the rec center, too," Arya says quickly. "I've been going there for lessons with Syrio."

"Syrio?" Meera asks.

"He's a fencing master," Arya gushes. "I've learned so much in so little time, stuff I never knew before, all these moves and all these little things you can tell yourself to keep yourself grounded, you know? It's fascinating. He's a genius."

"Fencing," grunts Jojen.

"He prefers fishing," Meera volunteers, nudging her head toward her brother with an apologetic smile. "Me, I'm all for track and field. Javelin's my specialty. I could teach you," she offers to Bran, and again Arya feels insanely grateful that she's here.

"That would be... great," Bran says slowly, and Meera smiles warmly over at him.

Dinner passes that way, with Jojen mostly silent, Meera cheerily entertaining Bran, and Bran and Arya bantering as only close siblings can. Arya counts all the stars in the sky as lucky ones for letting him live; she doesn't know where she'd be without Bran. She doesn't make friends easily, particularly not with girls, and she's always found that her brothers understand her best. It was hard enough losing Jon when he went off to boys' university, which he jokingly refers to as the Wall for the high fences that surround the campus. Arya can't imagine being without Bran as well.

Once their plates are clean and their glasses are empty, Meera stands and stretches and suggests they all go and get ice cream. Bran beams up at her, a childlike excitement dancing in his Tully blue eyes. Jojen nods, and a faint smile lights up his somber face. "I'll go look for an ice cream shop, yeah?" Meera offers.

"I'll come with," says Bran quickly. "Arya, you're plugged into our account, right?" Arya nods. All the Stark children are hooked into one bank account via a network of credit cards. She and Bran can both pay with the same money.

Jojen crosses to stand behind Bran, glances from the crippled boy to his sister and back again, and then sighs dejectedly. "I need to pee," he announces in a bored tone, and disappears off to the bathroom, and as Meera wheels Bran out the door, chatting to him excitedly about something or other, Arya is left completely alone.

She waves Gendry over, and he ambles toward her jauntily. "All alone, then?" he observes. "And they've left you the tab. Lovely."

"Yeah, well," Arya says, and lays the credit card atop the check. "I can handle it."

"Aren't you a proper lady, paying for everyone," Gendry muses, gathering the check into his hands.

"I'm not a lady!"

"You _are_," Gendry laughs. "You come from money and you're polite enough to pay for your brother and his friends. You're a proper little gentle-lady."

"I am _not_!" Arya insists. "I'm a fencer, I'm a runner. I'm not a lady. I don't want to sit around the house and moon over boys and embroider unicorns onto handkerchiefs and wear strawberry-scented perfume." Gendry's eyebrows lift in bemused surprise, and Arya sucks in a deep, exasperated breath. "Not that it's any of your business," she adds. "Just... just go run through the credit card."

Gendry grins wildly, bows his head ever so slightly, and says, "As milady commands."

Arya hurls the remains of a breadstick in his general direction, but he's already gone.

He returns mere moments later, the credit card and receipt tucked deftly between two fingers, and lays them against the table without a word. He still has that stupid grin on his face, though, and Arya stares angrily back up at him. "I'm not a lady," she says again.

Gendry glances over his shoulder, to where the breadstick sits, forlorn and wasted, on the ground. "Did you throw a breadstick at me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You pissed me off." Again, Gendry merely raises his eyebrows. "You're annoying," Arya tries.

"You know, you really shouldn't insult people who are bigger than you," Gendry advises with a laugh.

"Then I wouldn't get to insult anyone," Arya complains. "Except maybe Rickon, but insulting your twelve-year-old brother just isn't any fun."

"I'm sure," Gendry nods. "Now, please, milady, could you just sign for your damn pizza?"

"Not if you don't stop calling me that," Arya replies through gritted teeth, and folds her arms stubbornly against her chest.

"Then prove to me you're not a lady, she-who-pays-for-everyone-else's-stuff-and-lives-in-a-mansion," Gendry says.

"I threw a breadstick at your head," Arya reminds him. "I've spent all week kicking the shit out of everyone in your damn fencing studio."

"It's not my fencing studio," Gendry points out. "And I haven't seen any of that. Door's closed, remember?"

Arya frowns and tries to think of something else to persuade him to stop referring to her as a lady. She's not a lady. She might be female, but she'll be damned if she's going to end up boring and desperate like Sansa, polite to everyone whether or not they're polite back like her mother, or even just aloof and well-dressed like Cersei. Arya refuses to become any of these women. "Well, it happened," she insists stupidly. "I've beaten everyone I've come up against, except for Syrio, of course." When Gendry says nothing, she continues: "I've knocked at least twelve people on their asses. No regrets."

"How unladylike," Gendry sighs. "Now can you please just sign?"

Arya glares up at him with narrowed grey eyes, but relents and scribbles a messy signature across the receipt, tucks the credit card back into her wallet, and stands to go. Gendry blocks her path, though, so she clears her throat and tells him, "Get out of my way."

"As milady commands," he laughs.

She pushes him out of her way and stomps toward the door. "I've got a fencing tournament next Saturday," she shouts back at him. "See how much of a lady I am when I'm knocking people flat on the ground!" Gendry salutes her with another wink, and heads toward a family at another table.

Arya, thoroughly enraged, storms out.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: As always, thanks for the reviews, favorites, and follows! Keep them coming :D I'm doing my best to continue writing, though we're nearing the end of what I have actually written. Disclaimer for this particular chapter: I know literally nothing of fencing, though my college offers a fencing course (and uses posters with Syrio & Arya on them to advertise!), so hopefully I'll learn at a later date. In any case, if I've broken any fencing rules or this fencing makes no sense... that's because I have no idea what I'm doing.**

Chapter Five.

Gendry doesn't really know what he's doing at a high school fencing tournament. He feels decidedly out of place, and also disturbingly old. He's not an old man by any means, but at twenty-one, surrounded by fourteen-to-eighteen-year-olds, he feels positively ancient. Hot Pie, beside him, is equally uncomfortable. "What are we doing here again?" he asks.

"Watching a lady prove she's no lady," Gendry answers stupidly. He doesn't see anyone he knows, though that doesn't really surprise him. All these people are at least three years younger than he is, and he didn't go to King's Landing High. He went to high school in Flea Bottom, where they didn't even have fencing, and they certainly didn't have well-lit outdoor fields with actual seats and padded mats for said fencers to fall upon.

"Oh, have you finally got a girlfriend, then?" Hot Pie asks, and Gendry shoots him a stormy look.

"I've got a..." He's about to say friend, when it occurs to him that he doesn't really know what Arya is. She's a sixteen-year-old nuisance who appears in the rec center on a daily basis to bother him and then spend an hour or two practicing with Syrio. Gendry is a busy guy, and doesn't really have time to check in and see exactly how those fencing lessons go, but he's still curious. And that, above all else, is what has brought him to Arya's fencing match today. Not a genuine interest in how the rapiers he's constantly fixing are used. And certainly not a desire to meet a sassy sixteen-year-old girl's challenge. _See how much of a lady I am, _she'd said, and Gendry had had to bite back yet another "As milady commands."

She might have punched him if he said that. He entertains that notion for a moment, wondering if a punch from a tiny albeit fiery girl would hurt or if it would feel more like a pinch. He doesn't have long to wonder before Arya, dressed all in white with a red armband and a grey wolf patch sewn across her back, pops up at his side. "Holy shit," she says, "you actually came."

Hot Pie glances up at Gendry with wide brown eyes, but says nothing, and Gendry can only assume he's drawing all the wrong conclusions. "Yes," Gendry replies in a level voice, "I actually came. Are you going to offer me tea or-"

Arya hits him, hard, in the arm, and it hurts decidedly more than a pinch would.

"Well," Gendry laughs, "that was unladylike."

Arya gives him a withered look, exasperation apparent in her big grey eyes, and Gendry holds up his hands in halfhearted apology. "Just... just go find my brother, okay? He should be in the stands over there. Meera and Jojen couldn't make it down this weekend, so he's on his own. You and your friend can keep him company."

"I'm-" starts Hot Pie, but Gendry cuts him off before he can rattle off his utterly unpronounceable real first name.

"This is Hot Pie," Gendry introduces his friend, and wraps an arm around Hot Pie's meaty shoulder. "We're looking for Bran, right?"

"Yeah, he's in the only stand with a ramp," Arya says. "I'll catch you later, okay? I'm the third match." And then she melts into the crowd, disappearing between a pair of tall male athletes, and Gendry is left with his arm awkwardly around Hot Pie.

"That stand, yeah?" Hot Pie points to a stand to their right, and Gendry squints at it, trying to locate Bran in his wheelchair. Arya explained Bran's predicament, as well as his accident, a few days after she and her brother showed up at the pizza shop. He knows Bran fell, he knows that this is contrary to Bran's sense of self - "Bran _never _falls," Arya confided in him - and he knows that Bran is miserable as a paraplegic.

Gendry spots Bran, seated alone in his wheelchair beside the front row of the bleachers. He tugs Hot Pie alongside him and then sits down beside Arya's brother, smiling amiably. "Gendry," Bran greets him.

"This is Hot Pie," Gendry says quickly, again preventing Hot Pie from volunteering his impossibly long first name. "He makes the pizza," Gendry adds.

"Dude, go you!" Bran congratulates him sincerely. "Robert wasn't kidding when he said it was the best pizza in King's Landing." Hot Pie's fat cheeks flush scarlet, and he looks straight down at the ground for a full minute, leaving Bran and Gendry to sit in silence and stare out at the growing mass of white-clad fencers on the field. "So," Bran says, finally breaching the silence, "you work at the rec center, right?"

"I run the shoes and swords, yeah," Gendry responds.

"My sister sees you a lot?"

"I guess," Gendry says, shifting uncomfortably on the cold metal seat. "She fences with Syrio almost every day, so..."

"So she's not going to see you?" Bran asks, perking one reddish eyebrow upwards.

"Are you thinking of the same Arya?" Gendry snorts. "Five-four, spunky, wouldn't be caught dead losing to a guy, let alone liking one?"

"I'm just checking," Bran shrugs. "She brings you up a lot, is all."

Gendry takes that in. Arya brings him up a lot at home. She mentions him. He exists, in the eyes of her brother at least. He's not a nobody.

This is not something that he's used to. He's uncomfortable with attention from anyone, even and especially when he's there to receive it directly. Awkwardly, he changes the subject. "You have a pretty big family, right?" he asks Bran.

The crippled boy nods. "Three brothers, a foster brother, and two sisters. It's just Arya, Sansa, Rickon and me at home now, though. I mean, we share the grounds with Robert's kids, but we hardly ever see them." He frowns. "I think Cersei keeps them away from us on purpose."

"You call all the adults in your life by their first names?" Gendry asks. He knows who Robert and Cersei are because of the news; otherwise he'd have assumed that they were classmates of Bran and Arya's.

"Not my parents," Bran says, and then a sly smile prickles at his cheeks. "At least not to their faces."

Gendry has to chuckle at that, and turns back to the field. Most of the fencers have cleared off to the side, leaving two to stand in the middle: a tall, wiry girl with a red armband similar to Arya's, and a short, rather dumpy boy with a golden armband. "What's with the bands?" Gendry asks, feeling exceptionally out of the loop.

"Denotes schools. Red is for King's Landing, yellow is Dorne. Purple is Braavos, I think, and that swampy green is for Riverlands High. Black is the Iron Islands," Bran explains. "Dark grey is Winterfell, up North."

Gendry nods appreciatively. "Got folks from all over, then, huh."

Bran laughs a little at that. "There have to be. There aren't enough fencers in any one city to constitute a real tournament, so when they have one, they make it a big affair. Everyone's invited, even people from Essos. Like, look, there, in orange: a Pentoshi. And that guy with the bright blue hair sticking out from under his mask, he's definitely Tyroshi, though he's trying to pass for Braavosi with that purple band, gods only know why."

On the field, the fencers begin their dance, jabbing at one another, their grim and serious faces obscured by their mesh masks. The girl's long braid hangs down her back, whipping around her as she whirls to cut in past her opponent's blade and prods him firmly in the chest with the point of her rapier. "One," an announcer calls.

The match is over quickly. The Dornishman doesn't get in one blow, and, clearly disgraced, trudges off the field. A tall, blonde friend of his claps him on the back, whistles, and assures him, "It's all right, Quentyn," but as the boy removes his mask, it becomes apparent that it's far from all right. His cheeks are the color of tomatoes. He's frightfully embarrassed. With his cheeks so puffed up and red, he reminds Gendry of an ashamed toad.

The next match, between an Iron Islander and a Riverlander, is over as quickly as the first, with the Riverlander coming out on top. "That's one of Meera's friends," Bran observes cheerfully, and pulls out his phone to text her. As he's punching in her name to start the message, his finger slips and, as Gendry casually glances over, he sees that Bran has come to the drafted messages in his phone.

There is only one draft there, intended for Arya, and Bran looks absolutely horrified as he reads it. "Shit," he whispers, mostly to himself. Gendry frowns.

"What?"

"Shit, shit, shit," Bran hisses.

"What?" asks Gendry, far more urgently. Bran flashes the phone toward Gendry, just long enough for him to catch a glimpse of the message, snippets of its dire importance: "Jaime's kids... Cersei up to something... I think they killed Jon Arryn." Gendry doesn't remember who Jaime is, though the name is certainly familiar, but he knows Jon Arryn, and not just from the news. Jon popped into the pizza shop on a fairly regular basis, and he always asked for Gendry by name.

He asked a lot of other things, too, and Gendry, when he was feeling particularly likely to believe conspiracy theories, sometimes wondered if that was why Jon Arryn died. But the news assured him that Jon died of natural causes. He was simply old, and he got sick, and he died. And Robert Baratheon needed a new business partner, so off he went on a whole lot of long drives to the North to pester Ned Stark.

And Ned Stark said yes. And now here he was, in King's Landing, with Bran and Arya. _And Sansa and Rickon, _Gendry reminds himself, but he hasn't met them, and so doesn't blame himself for not thinking of them. "What does this mean?" Gendry asks Bran, but the boy is already furiously tapping away at his phone, having already sent Arya the draft.

"I don't know," Bran mutters, so quiet it almost seems as if it's under his breath.

"You composed the message," Gendry points out.

"I can't _remember,_" Bran laments, clearly very frustrated, and Gendry, ashamed that he's reminded Bran of his own injury, looks out to the field again. Arya's out there, facing the blue-haired Tyroshi boy, who is much taller than she is. "Match three!" the announcer calls. "Griff Young of Braavos vs. Arya Stark of King's Landing!"

The pair circle each other, studying one another's movements, and then Griff lunges. Arya easily dodges, ducking his blow and rolling to the right. She springs back up on her feet and easily slides her rapier through the crook of his elbow to land a solid point to his chest. "One!" shouts the announcer, and the pair back away from each other once again.

Gendry is distracted from the match for a brief moment by a shadowy movement in a stand on the opposite side of the field. He recognizes a pair of grey eyes under cropped dark hair, immediately associates these things with Arya, and realizes he's just spotted Ned Stark for the first time. The shadow in the stands shifts closer to Ned, who is sitting next to none other than Robert Baratheon himself.

Back on the field, Arya parries a vicious onslaught of attacks from Griff, who is clearly furious that she even landed a blow on him. His movements are formulaic, though, and even Gendry can pick out the pattern in his jabs and slashes. He hopes that Arya, so close up, can do the same, and for a moment he thinks Griff has struck her, but then she drops below his high, chest-aimed blows, darts forward, and pops up within an arm's length of Griff and presses the tip of her rapier firmly to his chest once more. "Two!" the announcer cries, and the fencing crowd shrieks excitedly.

Griff backs away, shifting his weight from foot to foot angrily. Gendry imagines steam coming out of his ears, like in the old cartoons he watched as a child. He sees him as Wile E. Coyote, stamping his feet, while Arya darts and hops around him, teasing him like the Roadrunner. Only Arya is no bird, nor a lady, as Gendry has already observed in her brief period of fighting: she's a wolf. She's both vicious and guarded, both wild and careful. She measures her every move, but not in a way that betrays her intentions to her opponent. She seems almost impulsive in her movements, though he can tell by the way she pauses briefly, almost invisibly, between them that she's thinking over each one very, very deliberately.

Arya begins the third round, dancing around Griff, weaving around him in a way that almost reminds Gendry of water. Some of these movements are clumsier than others, and he realizes that this must be what she's been studying with Syrio: she's not as familiar with this technique yet, since she's only been here three weeks, but she's determined to try and use it to her advantage. It's working, too; Griff has no idea what to make of the girl prancing around him on light, cat-like feet, stabbing in towards him with sudden, almost snake-like movements and then bounding away, swift as a deer. Gendry finds himself entranced, unable to watch anything else. "Come on, Arya," Bran murmurs beside him, a strained urgency in his voice. "Finish him."

"She's playing with him, isn't she?" Hot Pie asks, his voice high and stressed. Gendry almost regrets bringing him; the gentle boy doesn't have the stomach for even the most minor violence, let alone scheduled and practiced sword-fighting.

"She's wearing him down," Gendry says, unable to take his eyes off her.

"She needs to just take him down," Bran insists, "I need her to check her messages. She needs to know what I know, maybe she can interpret it. Maybe she can figure out what it is that I can't remember."

Far below, Arya dives into a roll to avoid one of Griff's jabs. Gendry wonders, vaguely, if rolling and bouncing around like a rhythmic gymnast is within the rules of competitive fencing, but no one's called her on it, so he assumes they're either enchanted, like him, or that it's legal. "Come on, Arya," he whispers to herself.

"Take him down," Bran mutters insistently. "You've got him, Arya, take him _down._"

Arya jumps out of the way of another of Griff's slashes, parries a third one, and then, unexpectedly, leaps to the side and jabs her rapier in sideways, catching Griff on the side of his ribcage. "Three!" the announcer crows triumphantly, "And we have our winner: Arya Stark, of King's La-"

A shot rings out across the field, silencing everyone in the stands and causing Arya, whose elation had previously been so apparent on her freshly-unmasked face, to whip around toward the source of the sound.

Gendry follows her gaze and sees, in that same stand where the shadowy figure had been, that Ned Stark is missing, that a redheaded woman beside him is screaming and staring at the ground, that Robert Baratheon beside him is wide-eyed with horror.

Bran shrieks, and his hands shoot toward his wheels, but then Gendry spots the same shadowy figure, half of his face obscured by a dog mask, striding confidently through the frantic masses, and Gendry knows that this is the man who fired the shot. A quick, sudden movement on the field catches Gendry's attention, and he realizes Arya is running, hurtling across the field at a mile a minute, faster than he's ever seen anyone run before.

_They shot your father, you idiot, _he wants to shout, _they'll shoot you, too! _But instead he instructs Hot Pie to hold Bran in place, much to both Hot Pie and Bran's dismay, and launches himself off the side of the stands, landing heavily on his feet. He bolts then, desperate to catch the girl before she runs into the deadly masked man and gets herself killed.

She's far ahead of him, but he can cut her off, he knows, if he takes a direct path across the field. And so he does, tackling her to the ground, pinning her down with as much force of his body weight as he dares. "Gendry!" she shrieks, tears blurring her wide grey eyes, catching in her long black eyelashes. "Get off!"

He says nothing, merely keeps her trapped against the ground.

She bites down, hard, on his arm, and when he looks over at it he sees that she's drawn blood.

He doesn't budge, simply sets his jaw, ignores the pain, and holds her down.

"You stupid, bull-headed boy," she screams up at him. "That's my dad, that's my father, my father's been shot, let me _go_!"

"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "He'll shoot you, too."

She doesn't stop fighting against his grasp, never stops, is constantly squirming and wriggling and kicking, and on occasion biting him. He has both of her arms pinned, so thankfully she can't claw at him, as he's certain she wants to do. "I don't care," she growls up at him, "let me go."

"No," Gendry insists stubbornly.

"That's my _dad_," she tries once again, and aims a knee for his groin, which Gendry very narrowly dodges. "He could be dead, Gendry, let me _go_!" She keeps repeating it, let me go let me go letmegoletmegoletmego, and only once Gendry hears the whine of an ambulance siren, is sure that he's seen a very, very bloody stretcher go by and that the black-clad man with the dog mask is nowhere to be seen does he let go of her wrists. There are faint red marks from the pressure he's been placing on them, and he feels an immediate guilt, not just for bruising her, but for holding her there when that really wasn't his responsibility. He's startled to find that he cares, really cares, about whether or not he actually hurt her.

She shoves him off, glares at him with more reproach on her face than he's ever seen on any living person, snarls, "Stupid!" and sprints away in the direction of the blaring ambulance siren.

"I'm sorry," Gendry says again, even though he knows she cannot hear.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: As always, thank you for the favorites and the reviews! To the person who wanted some Cat/Arya bonding, there's a little interaction between the two here. There'll be some mother/daughter moments in upcoming chapters, though, so stay tuned. As for this chapter, we have our first mid-chapter POV switch, and though it starts with angst angst angst, there is also some completely unapologetic fluff. Enjoy!**

Chapter Six

Arya knows that her mother doesn't know what to do with any of them. It's been two days since the funeral, and all of the children are still listless and depressed. This is especially true of Bran, who does nothing but wheel forward and then backward in the same spot, so persistent in his motion that he actually starts to dig ruts into the finished wood floors.

Sansa is hardly any better. She sits in her room, running a brush through her hair even though there are no more tangles to comb out. Sometimes Joffrey shows up and goes into her room. No one asks them what they're doing, and it doesn't seem to change Sansa's behavior: she goes back to brushing her hair and tapping her nails absently against her desk the second her boyfriend disappears.

Rickon is the most vocal. He cries, whimpering like the child that he is against Catelyn's skirts. He's only just turned twelve: old enough to understand the severity of what's happened but too young to be able to properly process it. All he can do is cry, until he has no tears left, and then all he can do is make empty, strangled sobbing noises, and ask Catelyn repeatedly, "Why?"

She doesn't have the answer to that question, so he turns to Sansa. "Why?" Sansa buries her head on her arms on her desk, finally giving into thick, shuddering sobs, and Catelyn beckons Rickon back out toward her and closes the door.

"Why?" Rickon asks Bran next, and Bran merely looks up at him with pained, lost blue eyes. Bran wishes he knew why. He wishes he understood the information in the draft he sent to Arya, seconds before the gun was fired. But he doesn't understand. He doesn't understand why anything that happened, happened. He's completely at a loss, and he hates it.

Finally Rickon comes to Arya. "Why?" he pleads, and because she's seen how her siblings reacted and because she's filled with more anger than grief, she pulls him into her and hugs him and strokes his auburn curls.

"There is no why," she says. "There is only now."

"Now hurts," Rickon observes aptly.

"I know," Arya agrees, and steels herself. "It will always hurt."

She goes to sleep every night with the sound of that gunshot ringing in her ears. Every time she closes her eyes she sees Ned, slumping to the ground with grey eyes at first shocked and then unmistakably lifeless. She sees the paramedics pressing on his chest, trying to resuscitate him and receiving only spit-up blood in return. She sees the bullet, covered in dark, hot, sticky blood, placed gingerly upon a silver tray. She sees the initials carved onto the side of the bullet: R.B., and knows that her father took a bullet intended for someone else.

And every night, she wakes up with a silent scream upon her lips. Her nightmares are ruled by a shadowy figure with a gun and a malicious grin, by the repeated sound of fire meeting gunpowder, by the stark silence and then the shrieks, by the complete and utter inability to move.

It's this last aspect of her recurring nightmare that angers her the most. She can't even go near the rec center for fear of seeing Gendry, and she never wants to see him again. He held her down, prevented her from running an uncapped rapier through that asshole assassin's heart, and kept her from tearing out the throat of her father's killer. He kept her from her revenge, and she can never forgive that.

A week passes. Sansa stays in her room. Joffrey visits more frequently, and with each visit Sansa, if possible, becomes more withdrawn. Arya and Bran share a few looks, as they try to ease themselves back into life as they'll never again know it. They both know that Joffrey is not Robert's child, and that he's the product of incest, but they dare not tell Sansa. She has enough to worry about. Rickon continues to cry, but he no longer asks "why," having received the best answer anyone could give. _There is no why._

Catelyn cooks and cleans and keeps herself as busy as possible. Arya does not fail to notice that her mother is constantly doing things. She understands. Whatever eases the pain. Whatever helps her to forget.

Arya does not want to forget, though. Arya wants to remember this anger, this hate, forever. She wants to be able to access it at any moment, the second she finds out who shot her father. _Something about a dog, _is all she has to go on, and Bran is no help in translating it.

She goes back to her studies, more hopeless than ever. Bran takes up photography again. Sansa shrinks back into her room, and then refuses to come out altogether. Catelyn knocks and asks if everything is alright, Sansa insists she is fine, and everyone considers it done. "It's not right," Bran tells Arya, as they pass the door to Sansa's room, which is tightly closed but not, as Arya discovers when she tries the knob, locked. "Go talk to her," Bran suggests, and Arya wrinkles her nose.

"And say what?" she hisses. "Your boyfriend's uncle is also his father? Oh, and daily reminder, our dad's dead because he took a bullet for your boyfriend's 'dad,' so, that's nice, right?"

"Just ask her what's wrong, you absolute idiot," Bran snaps, and hits her lightly on the back of the head.

"Well, since you _clearly _know how it's done, why don't you go talk to her?" Arya snarls.

"Because you're her sister. She'll talk to you. That's what sisters are for. Brothers are for hugging and referring to as 'annoying,'" Bran says definitively. "Go. Inside."

Arya steps inside, closing the door behind her. She takes note of the closed blinds, of Sansa curled in a ball on the bed. "Sansa?" she asks in the most timid voice she can muster. Her sister doesn't look up at her. "What's up?"

"I'm fine," Sansa says, "go away."

"You're not pregnant, are you, because if you're knocked up with Joffrey's wormy-lipped baby, I don't think I could-"

Outside, Bran smacks the wall, and Arya bites her lip and closes her eyes. "I'm not pregnant," Sansa says softly. "I wouldn't..."

Arya takes a tentative step closer to her. Sansa pulls the blankets up further around herself. "So what are you hiding?" Arya asks, trying her best to keep her voice gentle and sisterly, rather than argumentative and brash like it normally is. "You wouldn't what?"

"I wouldn't sleep with him," Sansa confesses.

"Sansa," Arya whispers, "what's on your face?" Sansa shies away, and Arya reaches forward, grabs the blanket, and yanks it away.

Sansa's left eye is ringed by a greenish bruise, and her lip is split and swollen. There are bruises, clearly from tightly-gripped fingers, all along her shoulders and arms, and a glaring red mark, also starting to bruise, from a recent backhanded slap across her right cheek. "Seven hells," Arya breathes in sharply. "How long has he...?"

"Since... I. I don't know. About two weeks after we started dating," Sansa peeps.

"Hells, Sansa, and you didn't tell anyone?"

"No!" Sansa cries out, her voice finally rising above a whisper. "He said, if I told... he said, the next time, he'd kill me, and rape me, and - Arya, you mustn't tell. You can't tell, do you understand? You can't."

"I'm not about to let this continue. I mean, look, he could have broken, like, three different bones, just imagine what he'll do next-"

"Arya!" Sansa pleads, her voice breaking. "Please."

Arya holds her sister's gaze solemnly for a moment before closing her eyes and shaking her head. "I'm going to kill him," she decides. "I bet he has something to do with Dad, too, I'll just bet. That wormy-lipped little bastard, I'll kill him."

"Arya..." Sansa protests feebly, but Arya is already halfway out the door.

She storms down the stairs, leaving Sansa's door ajar behind her, and is halfway across the yard when she overhears Catelyn on the phone. "I don't know what to do anymore, Robb. Can't you just... take one of them? I can't handle them, Rickon is a mess and gods only know how Bran's faring, it's not like he tells anyone... Arya's gone completely wild, I keep hearing all these grunts and growls from her room. Sansa won't even come out of her room. Can't you at least come down, entertain them? Cheer them up? They were all so glad to see you at the funeral, and..." Arya slinks back across the yard and situates herself underneath the window through which Catelyn's voice is carrying. "You're absolutely sure? Well, that's a shame, I just... I'll figure something out. What? No. Absolutely not. No, I am not going to call Jon."

Arya's face lights up a little. _Jon? _Her favorite brother coming to visit might not fix anything, but it sure as all hells would make her feel better. At least he would understand her. He would listen to her talk about her anger, and what she planned to do about it. "_You _call Jon, or... what? Fine, yes. I'll tell Arya to call him, maybe he can take her for a few days. The seven only know what spending a few days around a university full of boys could do for her aggression problem... Yes, that's fine. I understand. I love you, Robb. Be well."

Catelyn hangs up the phone with a sigh, clucks her tongue a few times, and starts to pace around the room. Arya slips innocently in through the nearest door and sidles up to her mother. "So I'm supposed to call Jon?" she asks. Catelyn massages the space between her eyebrows and nods, not even bothering to ask how long Arya was listening to the conversation.

Ten minutes later, Arya sits cross-legged on her bed, talking animatedly with her brother with the phone crooked between her ear and shoulder as she attempts, unsuccessfully, to flip a pen around her fingers. Talking to Jon, she feels, for the first time in almost two weeks, like the sixteen-year-old girl she is. "Listen, I know mum won't really like it, but she's already agreed, so can I come stay with you? Just for a little while?"

Jon clears his throat awkwardly on the other end of the phone. "I'd love to have you, Arya, but we aren't allowed to have any girls, family or no... One man's family is another man's fuck, you know?" Arya grimaces, and lets him continue. "And I'm already in deep shit for sneaking Ygritte in here the other week..."

Arya doesn't even ask who Ygritte is. She can guess well enough.

"Point is, I can't take you. I'm really sorry. I really wish that I could. Have you tried with Robb and Theon at the Twins? Sounds like Catelyn's pretty desperate," Jon adds. "If she was considering sending you to me, she can't be too bothered by you staying around Theon's overactive sex life."

"_She _might not be bothered," Arya sputters, disgusted, "but I do _not _want to be anywhere near any of that."

"I'm really sorry, Arya," Jon says again. "I've got to go. Be good?"

"You know me," Arya replies sullenly.

"I mean it," Jon says in as stern a voice as he can. "Don't go stirring up trouble just because you're angry."

"I won't," Arya assures him, even though that is exactly what she'd been planning on doing prior to this phone call.

"Alright. I'll see you in a few months for holiday break, okay?"

"Yeah," Arya grumbles. "I'll see you." And before Jon can say anything else, she hangs up, stomps down the stairs, and, lounging sulkily against a doorframe, informs Catelyn, "He can't."

"It's fine," Catelyn says tiredly. "I'll manage."

But she won't, really, and Arya knows that. She has enough on her plate just trying to console Rickon, not to mention that Sansa is a victim of domestic abuse and Bran is in a wheelchair. Arya is the most capable of surviving on her own, and she knows her violent presence is only upsetting her mother. She's not about to change who she is to make Catelyn's life easier, though. It's much easier for her to just leave. "No," she says, as she hops out the door, "I'll find a place."

Catelyn calls after her, but Arya is already gone, running once again to she-knows-not-where, and then she finds that her feet have taken her to the rec center. _Syrio, _she thinks. _Syrio will take me._

She can face walking past Gendry to get to Syrio, for the sake of her mother's sanity. That's something she can do.

But as she stalks inside and shoulders gloomily past Gendry's rental desk, completely and utterly ignoring him, she can already feel that something is wrong. "He's not here," Gendry says as Arya tugs at the door handle to the fencing studio. She sets her jaw and tugs once more, resolutely, on the handle.

"It's not a Sunday," she says, without turning to look at him.

"He hasn't been in for over a week," Gendry tells her.

"What?" Arya spins to face him, and is immediately filled with the same rage that consumed her when he pinned her to the field, preventing her from running to her father's side, from going after her father's assassin.

"He hasn't come in for ten days now," Gendry says, and then, with the faintest hint of a smile, "Funny time for a fencing lesson, this."

"I didn't come for a fencing lesson, I came to - you know, it's not any of your damn business," Arya snaps. "Where can I find him?"

Gendry shrugs. "If I knew that, he'd be here by now. You're not the only one who's angry he's not here. My boss is almost to the point of asking _me _to teach fencing, and believe me that is all kinds of a bad idea..." Arya glares at him with crossed arms, but she can't keep hot tears from stinging at her eyes.

Syrio was it. He was the only person who might possibly have taken her. She has failed to find another place to stay, failed to lift any of her mother's heavy burden. Gendry sets down the rapier he was in the middle of polishing, and pushes his way out through the counter door, coming to stand closer to her.

"Hey," he says, "are you crying?"

"No," she says, but even she can hear how tremulous her voice is.

"I'm really sorry, you know," he says gently.

"Everyone says that. They don't mean it," Arya says to the floor, refusing to meet his eyes. She can't face those blue, blue eyes. They reflect everything and turn it a shade of saddened cobalt. She can't face a world that blue. It's too close to reality.

"I don't mean about your father," Gendry says. "I mean, I do, but I'm mostly sorry that I... I didn't think, okay, I just saw you running toward the killer, and I didn't have any time to consider what I was doing, and I just tackled you. It wasn't a good thing to do, and I shouldn't have done it, and I'm sorry."

"I could have gotten to him," Arya growls, and finally dares to look up at him. She doesn't lock eyes with him, though, instead focusing on one of his cheekbones, just close enough to his eye that she might pass for making eye contact. "I could have run him through with my sword."

"And then you would have been killed, too," Gendry tells her.

"I would not have-"

"No. Listen. The guy was a professional. He was wearing a mask. He knew he had to hide his identity. He would not have hesitated to kill a sixteen-year-old girl, especially a sixteen-year-old girl who came running at him with a sword, which, if you remember, you actually did not have in your hand at the time," Gendry says sternly, though his blue eyes twinkle as he points out that last part.

Arya's lips part in surprise, and then she bites down on her lower lip and kicks feebly at his shoe. "Stupid," she mutters.

"Yeah," Gendry admits. "Stupid." He runs a hand through his short black hair and looks past her at the fencing studio door. "What did you need from Syrio, if not fencing?"

"I told you, it's not any of your damn business," Arya insists.

"Arya Stark, if you are in some kind of trouble and you're not telling me, I swear I will..."

"Why do you even care?" Arya demands.

Taken aback, Gendry looks sharply down at her, straight into her grey eyes, and she has no opportunity to look away. There he is, and there she is, and everything is blue and sad but really, truly alive. "We're... we're friends," Gendry says slowly. "Friends care about each other."

Arya nods uncertainly, entertaining the notion that she could have a friend. A twenty-one-year-old friend who works in a rec center and a pizza joint, but a friend nonetheless. She hasn't had a friend in, well... she can't think of ever having an actual friend. She always just spent time with Bran's friends, or Bran himself, or Jon. Especially Jon.

Damn Jon and his all-boys' university.

"Friends also tell their friends what's going on and why they're looking for a fencing master for non-fencing reasons," Gendry prompts her hopefully.

"I need to not be at home," Arya says carefully. "I just... My mother can't deal with all of us. And I can get out. I'm capable of that. I can leave for a while."

"But you don't have anywhere to go," Gendry concludes, and Arya nods. "You can come to mine, if you want."

"I'm still mad at you," Arya tells him defiantly.

"Doesn't mean you can't stay at my flat a few days, does it? I'm trying to look out for you here," Gendry sighs. "Can't you just let someone else look out for you, for a few days? Do you _have _to do absolutely _everything _all on your own?"

"Yes," Arya says stubbornly, though she knows that this, at least, she can't do on her own. At least not right now. "I'm an independent person."

"Yes, believe me, I know," Gendry says. "You can take care of yourself. But please, just this once, accept my help. I'm trying to make up for what I did. This is my apology. Stay at my flat a few nights, if a few nights away is what you need."

Arya studies him dubiously and then, tentatively, holds out a hand for him to shake. "Only because I'm trying to keep my mom sane," she says. "Otherwise I'd put this off a few days and find a flat all of my own."

She can practically see Gendry biting back some retort, probably along the lines of 'with what money,' but he says nothing, simply takes her hand, smiles awkwardly, and shakes it heartily.

Gendry doesn't know what made him think that this was a good idea. He shouldn't have told Arya she could stay with him. _Stupid, _he thinks to himself as he jiggles the key in the lock, but it's her voice he hears.

He hardly has enough room for himself in his apartment, let alone an active teenage girl. Not to mention that it's a complete mess. He understands that Arya isn't a delicate flower who gets offended at the sight of the first speck of dust, but still he's embarrassed. He doesn't know why the sudden need to impress, or even to meet some form of average expectations, has arisen.

Yet here he goes, picking up old t-shirts and empty coffee mugs until his arms are completely loaded with stuff, leading Arya into his apartment and smiling sheepishly as he carries his armful of junk into the tiny kitchenette. Arya moves around confidently, investigating everything without touching anything. She appears curious, and he's reminded of how very, very young she is, and how bad this situation might look to an outsider: twenty-one-year-old man invites innocent, down-on-her-luck sixteen-year-old girl to stay with him.

It's not just the fairly wrecked state of the apartment that makes Gendry feel dirty. "This is the smallest bathroom I have ever seen," Arya says with mild surprise. "And it's surprisingly clean," she comments.

"Unlike the rest of the apartment," Gendry concedes. "Sorry."

"I'm no better," Arya says with a shrug, and continues to pick her way through the stuff on the floor, gently pushing a pair of pajama pants toward the wall with her foot. "How long have you lived here?" she asks.

"Six years," Gendry says.

"How old _are _you?" Arya asks then.

"Nosy again," he says with a weak laugh, but then he sighs. "Twenty-one. I moved out when I was fifteen."

Arya doesn't ask why, just sits down on the couch and gazes at him expectantly.

"My mother died," Gendry confesses.

"I didn't ask."

"Not out loud you didn't," he says with a half-smile, and she half-smiles back. "Don't trash anything, yeah?"

"Me? Trash a disaster area?" Arya snorts, and leans back against the couch. "I would never."

Gendry is tempted to argue that it's _not _a disaster area, it's a bachelor pad, but he already knows it would be no use. Instead he shakes his head, grunts as if to show that he thinks she's hopeless, and sets to cleaning more of the shit off the floor, moving the clothes back toward his dresser and the mugs back onto the kitchen counter. He sets a couple half-read books on a chair and throws a couple empty Cheetos bags into the trash can in the kitchen and then, satisfied that he can at least see the majority of his floor, goes back in to find Arya still seated on his couch, a black lump in her lap.

Her fingers twist around the object, and she looks up at him sharply when he comes in. "What have you got there?" he asks. She tosses it at him and, as he reaches up to catch it, he realizes he knows exactly what it is. Just to make sure, he holds up the t-shirt in front of his face and then, seeing the two words across its front, throws it back to Arya. "Sorry. I should have remembered it was out," he says apologetically. "I swear I didn't want to remind you of..."

"Do you have any of their CDs?" she asks, her voice high and clear, all the tremulous fear and grief from earlier gone.

Gendry nods. "Around somewhere, yeah."

"Can you put them on?"

"They weren't exactly a good band," Gendry starts, but Arya glares at him with ice-cold grey eyes, and he caves. "'80s metal, you know, it's not that great..."

"It's the only thing left of him," Arya says. "This is all he left behind."

"And you," Gendry points out as he digs through a stack of CDs next to his old TV.

"Yeah, but that's not worth anything," she mutters bitterly, and twists the t-shirt in her hands, staring down at the faded white letters: THE REBELLION.

"That's not true," he murmurs as he locates the one and only CD by The Rebellion that he owns, and pops it into his dust-covered stereo, turning down the volume to keep Robert's tuneless screaming from enveloping the whole apartment. When he turns around to look at Arya, her eyes are on the floor and the t-shirt is knotted around her white-knuckled hands. "I'll turn it off," Gendry volunteers, but she shakes her head.

"Did he ever sing?" she asks quietly.

"No, but he's got a mean bass solo on track six," Gendry supplies as helpfully as he can.

"Play that," Arya commands.

Gendry skips ahead, swallowing the urge to say "As milady commands." Arya seems abnormally well-adjusted, given that it's only been a little under two weeks since her father died. Gendry can't imagine losing a parent in such a violent manner. He was prepared for his mother's death. She was sick for months. He had time to come to terms with what was happening.

All Arya had was a bang and a stadium filled with screams. Yet here she is, two weeks later, and she seems almost perfectly normal. Gendry knows he wasn't this stoic two weeks after his mother died. He was still sullen, kicking things, shouting at the men from Child Protective Services who came to ask him who his father was, where he could possibly go. That was the point in time when he got into listening to music like The Rebellion.

It was harsh and hard and had no feeling. Gendry wanted to be harsh and hard and without feeling as well.

It didn't work. He was always feeling. He is always feeling. He always feels.

And now he crouches next to his CD player, watching Arya as she closes her eyes and allows herself to mourn her father's loss. Her grip on the t-shirt loosens until it sits, a black pool of cloth, upon her lap, with her tiny fingers splayed across it, twitching ever so slightly as she imagines her father's hands flying over the frets of his bass guitar.

Ned's solo comes to an end, and Robert resumes his deep, baritone scream-singing. The tiniest of sighs puffs out from between Arya's lips, and Gendry finds himself mesmerized by her face as a strange sense of calm overtakes her. They stay there, Gendry crouching on the floor, Arya curled on the couch, for quite some time, with The Rebellion's death metal crashing quietly in the background, and then, after what feels like nothing and forever, Arya cracks one eye open.

"What are you looking at?" she asks, almost defensively.

"You," Gendry admits sheepishly. "I've never seen you so peaceful." Arya makes a face at him, and then, unable to come up with any kind of appropriate response, sticks her tongue out at him. "And just like that, the illusion is shattered," Gendry mutters to himself, and she chuckles faintly on the couch.

Throughout the evening, he's constantly struck by how normal she acts. He's a little concerned at first that she doesn't pick as many fights as she normally does. He wonders if, perhaps, she's finally been defeated, if the weight of the world has finally dampened her vibrant, fiery sense of self. But then she flings a ramen noodle at him over dinner and smirks as he peels it out of his hair. When he mocks her, laughing all the while, and tells her that miniature food fights, however fun, are absolutely unladylike, she threatens to upend the entire Styrofoam cup of noodles onto his head, and he forgets, for a moment, why she's in his apartment.

She seems so natural there, as they fumble through the kitchenette, discarding their instant noodles and dumping their utensils in the sink, that Gendry finds himself wondering just how long she'll stay. He discovers, as he thinks about it and offers to put on a movie, that he's not bothered in the slightest by the idea of Arya staying for a week, or a month, or a year. He likes spending time with her. As much as he enjoys poking fun at her, he knows he only does it because he wants to see the corners of her pale pink lips twitch upwards as she delivers a sound comeback. He loves her smirks, the little furrows her brows make when she's really mad at him, the way her cheeks color ever so slightly when she finds herself unable to retort as quickly as usual.

Most of all he loves her smiles, the way they light up her solemn grey eyes so that they look not like stormy skies but like glimmering discs of midwinter ice, shining under the lights of the winter festivals.

Gendry hates himself for even noticing all of these things. She's so young, practically a child. He shouldn't even be looking at her, let alone letting her stay with him. And the fact that this is Arya Stark only makes things worse. Her family is important. They have power. They end up in the media spotlight on a fairly regular basis, though not as often as the Baratheons, Lannisters, or the Tyrells. The Starks have a set place in the world, and Gendry knows that, despite whatever it is he's doing now, he is not a part of it.

But, when it's nearing eleven o'clock and _Die Hard _is winding down on the television, he loses sight of all the things that tell him that he has no business even spending mere minutes of his life with Arya Stark. Because there she is, perfectly asleep with her head on his shoulder, her long eyelashes practically brushing her cheeks and her straight brown hair pulled into a short, messy braid. Her chest rises and falls rhythmically as she sleeps, and her fingers curl and tighten ever so slightly, every once in a while, as her dreams shift and change.

Gendry is loath to disturb her, but she deserves a better place to sleep than his couch. As gently as he can, he scoops her up into his arms, marveling at how light she is, almost like a bird. _She's not a bird, though, _he thinks. _She's far too fierce to be a bird. _He remembers the wolf patch on the back of her fencing gear, and smiles to himself as he carries her into his tiny bedroom. _A wolf is far more like her, _he thinks, _so wild and protective and outspoken._

Arya moves a little in her sleep, pressing her nose into his neck and curling her fingers into the fabric near his neck. She murmurs something unintelligible, and for a moment Gendry thinks she is waking up, but then she is silent once more. He sets her down on the bed, gently untwining one of her arms from around his neck, and pulls the blanket over her.

For a moment, he does nothing, merely stands there and looks at her and wonders what dreams plague or bless her at that very moment. Then, after a moment of trepidation and a fair amount of self-loathing, he leans forward and presses his lips, as softly as he can, to her forehead.

"Goodnight," whispers Gendry, and with that he leaves Arya to her rest.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: **Reiterating the same stuff I say every week, but thank you for the continued reviews and favorites. Fair warning: this is the last complete chapter that I have already written. I should have some time this week to crank out a couple more and stay ahead of the game, since one of my professors is out of town and hence I have no class for two days, but if not I apologize for the fact that updates are going to happen a lot more slowly :( Enjoy this chapter, which is almost entirely fluff to make up for impending angsty doom!

**Chapter Seven:**

The sun streams in through the window, shining brightly over Arya's face and jolting her awake. For a moment she forgets where she is: this is not Winterfell, nor is it the pool-house in the Baratheons' backyard, nor is it anywhere she's ever been. But then she remembers: she stayed with Gendry. This is his apartment. This is his bed.

Guilt washes over her. She never asked to use his bed. She'd have been perfectly happy with the floor. Hells, Arya would have slept in a cardboard box if it came right down to it, so long as that cardboard box had cell service so that she could contact the remaining members of her family. She definitely did not want to take away Gendry's sleeping space.

On the other hand, she can't really remember how she came to be in the bed. The last thing she remembers is watching Die Hard after eating a ton of noodles, and she's certain that she'd been sitting on the couch at that point.

Gendry had fed her, taken her in, and then – at this Arya can only guess – carried her into his bed to sleep. _He's a good guy,_ Arya thinks, _though maybe too good for his own good. _He had no obligation to give her the bed, or food, or even take care of her as much as she did. She didn't need that. All Arya really needed was a space in which to sleep, preferably with a roof.

She rolls out of bed, off to find Gendry and let him know that he has really, really done too much and she can do just fine on her own but if she can please use his floor for a couple days that would be great, but instead of ground, her foot finds the knotted remains of Gendry's _The Rebellion _t-shirt. Arya holds it up, studies it, sniffs at her own shirt, and then changes into it, casting her own moderately sweaty shirt to the floor beside Gendry's bed.

She pads out back toward the kitchen and spots Gendry, dead asleep and curled into what appears to be an uncomfortably cramped position on the couch. Arya considers, very briefly, letting him sleep for a little while longer, but after about a minute of ambling aimlessly about his apartment, her patience is worn out completely.

She grabs a pair of sweatpants off the floor and tosses them at his face. He wakes with a start, snatching the pants away and hurling them halfway across the tiny living space. "Wh-"

"G'morning," Arya drawls as he groans and sits up, turning to face her with sleepy, groggy eyes.

"What time is it?" he grumbles.

Arya shrugs. "Hell if I know. Probably around nine, if I had to take a guess."

Gendry grunts and ruffles his black hair, fluffing it even more than his strange sleeping position already has. Arya can't help but laugh. "You look like some kind of Essosi bird," she snickers. Gendry frowns, but after a few seconds he starts to attempt to flatten his hair back down, to no avail. "Why'd you sleep on the couch?" Arya asks, as he presses down on his scalp with one hand.

"You had the bed."

"I didn't want the bed," Arya points out.

"Well, you got the bed," Gendry argues.

"How exactly did I get the bed?" Arya asks. "Out of sheer curiosity."

"You fell asleep and I carried you," Gendry says, with only the slightest hint of embarrassment.

"You could have just left me on the couch. Clearly if I fell asleep I was fine," Arya tells him.

"But I didn't. I gave you the bed."

"Which is stupid, because you're already letting me stay here and that's more than enough. I don't need a bed, Gendry, I just need a space to sleep in. Not even a big space – it's not like I'm a particularly large person, if you know what I mean," Arya says. "You should have just let me sleep on the couch."

"But I didn't," Gendry repeats.

"Tonight," Arya says forcefully, "if you're letting me stay here again, you are taking the bed."

"No," Gendry says, shaking his head. "I mean, you can stay. But you get the bed. It's only right."

"Right how?" Arya snaps. "I'm little and I can easily fit on the couch, unlike you, Mr. Slept-like-a-Sardine!" Gendry glowers down at her as he stands and stretches, accidentally punctuating her point as half the joints in his spine pop in a rolling crackle. Arya doesn't even flinch, just tugs a little at her arm so that her shoulder makes a similar noise. "You could even have slept on the bed, too," she snorts, "it's not like I would have minded."

"I would," Gendry mutters, and pushes past her into the kitchenette.

"Okay, I get that it's not a particularly big bed, but there's definitely room for two people on it," she continues to badger him as she follows him. He tosses her an individual package of Frosted Flakes, which she catches easily and takes with her to the tiny table.

"I'm not about to share a bed with you," Gendry tells her as he sits down across from her and cracks open his package of Corn Pops.

"I didn't mean like that," Arya says hurriedly, hating the way that color rises to her cheeks the second the thought even crosses her mind. _This is Gendry, _she berates herself angrily. _Your friend. The pizza boy. _"Just… it's your bed. You should sleep in it. And if you're going to insist that I sleep in it, then…"

"No, Arya," he says. She fixes him with her intent grey eyes and his eyes flicker down to the dry cereal before them. "No milk," he sighs, and shakes his head.

"Don't change the subject," Arya says with the hint of a smile. "You're as bad as Rickon. What's up with you? You're being weird about the whole thing."

"Nothing," Gendry half-says, half-grunts noncommittally.

"Bullshit."

"It's nothing, Arya."

"Then why are you making it into something?"

He glares over at her with unreadable blue eyes and then, finally, Arya gets what she wants, and he says it: "Because you're Arya Stark, okay? You've got a big important name, and a big important family. You're an important person. The world knows who you are. But I'm just me, I'm just Gendry Waters. I don't even have a family. I'm a nobody, and I've got no business even talking to you, let alone being in the same bed with you."

Arya stares at him, aghast, and opens her mouth a couple times as she struggles to come up with a response. It's not that she doesn't know what to make of this; it's that she doesn't know which of the many emotions that have just risen to the fore of her mind she should access.

Gendry watches, unsure whether he should be horrified or simply confused as a cycle of emotions plays its way across Arya's face, shining furious at first in her eyes and then traveling down to an involuntary, almost sad quiver of her lip, and finally culminating in a frustrated furrow to her brow. "Are you bloody serious?" she intones finally, the words icy.

"Yeah," he nods, swallowing nervously as her thin, dark brows knit even closer together. He realizes he's reached the point where he no longer feels remotely emasculated for feeling intimidated, threatened even, by a skinny five-foot-four sixteen-year-old who can't weigh more than 115 pounds. "I just… yeah, all right?" She glares up at him, fists clenched at her sides.

Gendry gazes back down at her, unsure what to do. He's careful to keep his eyes locked to hers, despite the intensity of their eye contact. "Seven hells," she groans after a long, tense silence. "You're so stupid."

"I am not…" Gendry starts, but Arya cuts him off.

"You are! You're stupid. You're a stupid, bullheaded boy-"

"I'm twenty-one! I'm not a boy!"

"You think my family's important? I'm too _high-class _to associate with you? You think you're not good enough to talk to me?" Her grey eyes are narrowed to wintery slits, and Gendry clamps his mouth shut, knowing that even if he does protest, she'll continue her tirade anyway. "That's a load of bull, Gendry," Arya continues. "Maybe my family has money. Maybe we just entered some crazy business agreement that I don't totally understand. But that was all my dad, okay?" The fire in her eyes dims and dies and finally she lowers her gaze to the ground. "That was all Dad," she repeats. "We're not important without him. Now we're nothing."

Gendry hesitates, caught between pulling her in for a hug and stepping even further back for fear that she'll blow again. He settles on placing one hand awkwardly on her shoulder. "You're not nothing," he says gently, swallowing and hoping his cheeks don't start to turn red as the memory of her face pressed to his neck the night before overcomes him. "You're important to me," he adds lamely.

Arya looks up at him with wide grey eyes, opens and closes her mouth a few times, and then blurts, "You're an idiot!" once again.

"And you're a lady!" Gendry retorts. Arya grabs him by the wrist and flips him onto the ground, tackling him. He refuses to hit her – just because she's strong doesn't mean she's unbreakable – but does his best to deflect her blows as they tumble across the kitchen floor and back into his living room. He grunts and rolls her over, slamming her to the ground, but somehow she wriggles out from under him and pins him down.

"Pinned you," she hisses, grinning, her small hands pressed to his wrists as she sits astraddle his waist. Gendry grins back and throws her off, jumping on her again, but then he finds himself pressed beneath her once more. "Pinned you again," she snickers, this time suspended above him by just a few inches, one hand pressed to his chest and the other flat against the ground beside his head. She's laughing, her silver-grey eyes are sparkling, and her young face is framed by her straight brown hair, pulling loose from its messy braid. Her cheeks are tinged pink from laughter and her eyes are crinkling ever so slightly.

And then Gendry does something for which he thinks he will never be able to forgive himself. He leans up, as far as he can, and presses his lips to hers. Arya's eyes snap open as wide as they can go, and Gendry immediately pulls back. He has some kind of half-assed apology halfway to his lips when Arya kisses him again, shifting her hands so that her fingertips dance along his collarbone. He sits, pulling her in by the waist with one hand and curling his fingers into her hair with the other. She arches her back ever so slightly at his touch and responds by snaking her arms around his neck.

Her kisses are hot and hungry, but, as far as Gendry can tell, not entirely inexperienced. Her lips respond to his with a natural gift, matching his movements as if reading his mind. They fit together like puzzle pieces, to the point where Gendry isn't even surprised when Arya pokes a curious tongue into his mouth. He responds, delighted, knotting his fingers in the back of Arya's t-shirt – _his _t-shirt – and Arya makes a small moaning sound against him before she smiles into his lips. She pulls back, a fraction of an inch, and he feels her eyes open, eyelashes brushing against his eyebrows. "Holy shit," Gendry breathes, opening his own eyes so that he can study her, the sparkle in her eyes, the way her hair falls over her face.

"Idiot," she smiles, beaming up at him, and presses her forehead to his.

"I never thought of that as a term of endearment," he teases, and she knuckles him playfully on the shoulder.

"That's because you're stupid," she determines.

"So I've been told."

Again she punches him, only a little less lightly, and he laughs and brushes a loose strand of her hair back behind her ear. Only then does she blush and scoot a little further away from him. She looks every bit the blushing maiden then, and only then does Gendry remember: she's sixteen. He's twenty-one.

This is wrong, so very, very wrong, and if anyone in her family finds out – particularly one of her frightening older brothers – Gendry is doomed. Not to mention he's just… "Oh, gods," he murmurs to himself. "What have I done?"

She looks over at him, perplexed, and the bright smile finally fades from her face. "What?" she asks.

"You're not just high-class, Arya, you're sixteen for the gods' sakes. I'm a nobody who is five years older than you!" he babbles, inching backwards away from her.

"Oh, for crying out loud," Arya groans, "did it feel like I was protesting?"

"Arya, if anyone finds out… Not to mention I feel awful, I've just…"

"I'm not going to tell-" And then, of course, her phone vibrates against her thigh. She whips it out and flicks it open.

Her previously bemused expression devolves into a full-blown frown. "What?" Gendry asks.

"I need to go," she says.

"No, Arya, we should talk about-"

"It's a text from Bran," she says, though this explains nothing to Gendry.

"What's it say?"

"Just that I need to go," she replies.

"Arya, we need to talk about this, it's important," Gendry insists, trying his best to sound authoritative.

She shoots him a weary look but then her fingers fly over the keyboard anyway, firing some unknown response back to her brother.

"Look, I just don't think we can, or should… I mean, I want to, but…"

"Speak in complete sentences," Arya commands, but her eyes are on her phone, waiting for Bran to text back.

"That was fun," Gendry says lamely. "It was… good. You're good. Brilliant. Not just the kiss, I mean, but I – we – Gods, Arya, I don't know what's happening but I…" Gendry doesn't even know how he's planning to end that sentence, and considers himself lucky that Arya isn't paying full attention.

She looks up at him sharply as her phone vibrates once again. "I have to go," she says again, slamming the phone shut and shoving it back into her pocket.

"What's up?" he asks as she stands and attempts to tame her hair back into its loose braid.

"Robert Baratheon is dying," she says, her voice detached.

She leaves without giving him so much as a kiss goodbye.

"She's a killer, that girl," Gendry remarks to himself the second he hears the door slam.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note: Success in actually writing this week! As always, the reviews, favorites, and follows are much appreciated. To the person whose thoughts went straight to the Lion King - yes, that was intentional! It's a headcanon of mine, I think largely as a result of the Acorn Hall scene in the books. Also, a very belated response to the person wondering about a love triangle involving Aegon/Griff: I wasn't planning on going that route, but Griff will show up again, so never fear!**

Chapter 8

Instead of heading straight to Robert's bedside, like a normal person might in a similar situation, Arya goes right for Bran's room. He's seated in his wheelchair, gazing out the window, but as she closes the door behind her he turns to look at her. "You look rough," he observes. Arya blushes. "Good night?" Bran perks up one eyebrow, and Arya makes a half-assed attempt to flatten her hair. "Fine, fine," says Bran, holding up his hands apologetically. "It's not the time, anyway. Listen, I think Cersei's behind this."

Arya stares back at him, wide-eyed. "Way to cut straight to the point there, bro," she remarks blithely, at which Bran snickers lightly.

"Didn't see the point in dancing around the real problem here," he shrugs. "Better to just cut right in there, you know?"

"I guess. What do you mean, Cersei's behind this?"

"Well, like… okay. So we know from that text draft that I'd been meaning to send to you that Cersei & Jaime are up to something. And that the bullet that hit Dad was intended for R.B. And all of a sudden Robert's dying of some ungodly illness that struck out of absolutely nowhere? It's all a bit suspicious, don't you think?" Bran explains, his voice level even as he mentions Ned's death. Arya stiffens ever so slightly as the memory rises, though the anger that previously accompanied the thought of her father dying is lesser now.

"Speaking of ungodly illness, what's he got?" Arya asks.

"No one knows," Bran drawls. "He's just 'sick.' Really sick. All of a sudden. Came on as quickly as, say… food poisoning."

Arya nods. "You think he was poisoned." Bran grins and nods back at her emphatically. "And you want to prove it, don't you?" Again, Bran excitedly gives his assent. "What are we going to do?"

"One, we're going to figure out why all this is happening," Bran says firmly, the smile gone from his face but the light still shining in his eyes. "Two, we're going to shut Cersei down."

"Three," Arya adds, "we're going to teach that little prick Joffrey a lesson." Bran gives her a puzzled look, but Arya simply sets her jaw and begins to pull her hair back into a business-like ponytail. "Give me an order, captain."

"Recon?" Bran suggests feebly. Arya snorts but dips her head in a single grim nod before ducking out of the room. "And let's leave Rickon out of this particular endeavor for now, okay, Arya?" Bran calls after her, to which Arya responds by clicking her tongue and shouting back "Kay!"

Arya spends the next few hours creeping about the Red Keep, slinking from shadow to shadow and hiding whenever need be. She neither finds nor hears a thing, and returns, dejected and exhausted, to the poolhouse.

Surprisingly, Sansa is in the kitchen with a bag of frozen peas pressed to her forehead. She glances up at Arya with tired blue eyes and then slumps down into a kitchen chair. "Where's Mom?" Arya asks lamely. Sansa shrugs and dabs the frozen peas at a swelling on her lip. "You know if she comes home and sees you, she'll want to know…"

"I know," Sansa says, and sighs heavily. It's strange to Arya that her older sister now sounds so world-weary, when once she was so vivacious and optimistic. "I just… I don't really care anymore. There's no getting out of this. I don't see the point."

"What do you mean, 'there's no getting out of this?'" Arya echoes incredulously. "Sansa, you can just beat the shit out of him. Hell, _I _can beat the shit out of him. He's just a little shit!"

"You wouldn't understand," Sansa mutters, and lays her head down on the table atop the frozen peas.

"Try me," Arya dares, crossing her arms and coming to stand next to her sister.

"He's going to inherit Baratheon Corporation and the whole fortune. Joff is going to control everything in my life. Hells, Arya, he's going to control everything in _everyone's _life," Sansa moans.

Arya blinks, primarily surprised that her sister swore and secondarily excited by this new information. "He's getting the whole company? That seems like a whole lot of power for one asshole." Sansa peers up at her with watery blue eyes and then groans into her bag of frozen peas. "I need to go talk to Bran about something," Arya announces suddenly, as an idea comes to her. "I assume you can ice yourself on your own."

"I can nurse my own wounds, thank you," Sansa asserts as Arya bounds up the stairs and bursts into Bran's room.

"The whole company goes to Joffrey once Robert dies," Arya tells her brother, who is hunched at his desk, deep into his homework.

"The whole company? What about the part that our family is supposed to own?" Bran stares back at her, blue eyes wide, and Arya smirks.

"My thoughts exactly. Robert's too out of it to argue, right? And if Joffrey gets all the power, that really puts Cersei in control, and, as an extension of her, Jaime," Arya adds breathlessly. "They're consolidating this whole corporation, plus the added wealth of our family, into their own hands."

Bran gapes at her, eyes the size of dinner plates, and then smoothes back his auburn hair, sucking in a deep breath. "Shit, Arya," he says slowly, "are you positive it's all going to Joffrey?"

"Heard it from Sansa, and she could only have heard it straight from the horse's mouth," Arya confirms proudly.

"Our sister, the invaluable informant," Bran muses. Arya grins and is about to ask her brother what their best options for sabotage are when she is interrupted by a light knocking at the door.

"Say what about an informant?" Sansa asks wearily, the peas still pressed to her lip. She lounges against the doorframe, a tired expression on her face, and Bran's eyes go wide.

"What happened to you?" he asks, his voice suddenly very gentle.

"Smacked into a tetherball pole in P.E.," Sansa answers easily, and though Arya scowls she says nothing. "What are you two up to? You were being suspicious earlier." This last comment is directed entirely at Arya, who doesn't so much as blush at the accusation.

"Your boyfriend's parents are about fifty shades of cray, there's a whole lot of political bull going around, and I think the Baratheons are trying to lock our family out of the business deal," Arya explains. Sansa merely raises one perfectly sculpted red eyebrow. "And by Baratheons, I mean the Lannister side of things."

"I was about to say," Sansa mutters, "Robert practically begged Dad to partner with him for months. Why would he want to cut us out now?"

"Robert doesn't. But Robert's sick, or dying, or whatever," Arya waves a hand dismissively. "He doesn't have much of a say anymore, know what I mean? And you said it yourself, Joff gets everything once Robert goes. And if Joff gets everything, Cersei's in control till Joff turns eighteen."

"He'll be eighteen in, like, a week," Sansa points out. "His birthday's the day after the homecoming dance, which, by the way, you're both going to."

All color drains from Arya's face, though Bran merely smiles apologetically. "Like hell I am!" Arya protests. "I'm not about to get all dolled up and wear a dress and go shake my ass for a ton of people I utterly despise, Sansa, _honestly_."

"Mom's orders," Sansa smiles delicately, but for a moment there's a flash of mischief to her somber blue eyes. "We're all to get out and have fun for once."

Bran is silent as Arya continues to argue and bemoan the horror of dancing, and Sansa, watching him, quiets as well. At last, Arya falls silent, and turns to look at her brother. She can practically see his gears turning, as his eyes lower to the ground and his fingers twitch ever so slightly in his lap as he formulates a plan. "What are you up to, little brother?" Sansa asks quietly.

"The dance," he answers cryptically. Both Stark sisters stare at him, still completely lost. "Don't you see?" Bran asks, and, for once in agreement, Arya and Sansa both shake their heads. "It's a public affair. If we can uncover all this – with facts and everything – we can expose Joff and his family in front of the whole school. Our classmates have important parents. They can call the Lannisters on what they're doing, and tell the press, and then-"

"No," says Sansa forcefully, and the momentary lightheartedness is gone from her face. "You can't do that to Joffrey."

"It's genius," Arya breathes excitedly.

"No," Sansa repeats. "You mustn't! We're just supposed to have fun for once. This whole house has been one big train wreck since Dad died, and we don't need to heap on any more problems. Why can't we just go and dance and be happy?"

Arya glares sharply at her sister. "How _can _we just be happy when we know this is happening?"

"We're not all fighters, Arya," Sansa tries.

"Clearly," snaps the younger Stark.

Sansa's blue eyes cloud with tears, and she straightens up. "Fine," she sniffs. "I just wanted to actually talk to my own siblings for once, but if you're going to be rude, then fine."

"Sansa…" Arya starts, already feeling a twinge of regret for lashing out at her sister for not fighting Joffrey back, but Sansa is already out the door.

"I just wanted to be a normal teenager for one night," Sansa cries, poking her head back in the door, "but you have to spoil everything, don't you?" And with that, Sansa trots right back down the stairs, taking heavy, angry steps all the way.

"It wasn't a tetherball pole, was it?" Bran asks quietly, and Arya cuts him a stern look. He sighs and folds his hands sedately in his lap. "We can't do this to her."

"Priorities, Bran," Arya tries, but he shakes his head firmly.

"Family first," he insists. "Who else do we have besides each other?" Arya's mind immediately goes to Gendry, and she blushes at the very thought of him. She's still wearing his t-shirt, though she's since showered and changed pants, so she no longer looks like the walking aftereffects of a one-night stand. Bran notices the color in her cheeks, but says nothing, merely quirking up one auburn brow.

"Family first," sighs Arya, "but if Joff makes one bad move towards Sansa, I will out the whole thing, proof or no, and then I will grab him by the-"

"Understood," Bran cuts her off, grimacing.

"Now if you'll excuse me," Arya adds, "there is no way I'm getting through that dance without some worthwhile company, so I have a phone call to make."

"Mm-hmm," purrs Bran, fluffing his hair upwards, "I'm sure you do." Arya's face turns an even deeper shade of red, but she says nothing as she flees her brother's room.

Gendry scrambles to get the phone the second it starts ringing.

It's not that he expected Arya to call right away. It's not like he wanted Arya to call right away. He definitely didn't want her to come back the second she left. No. He would never want any of those things. He certainly hasn't been launching himself across the room and, while at work, actually through a shoe rack, in order to answer texts.

Granted, all of those texts prior to the current phone call were from Hot Pie, but they pertained to Arya, so Gendry is denying those as well. He feels stupid for it: he's almost twenty-two, he shouldn't be fawning over a girl almost six years younger than him with whom he shared a hurried make-out session this morning.

He flicks the phone open and schools his voice into nonchalance. "Arya?"

"You're coming to a dance with me," she commands.

Gendry thanks the gods he hadn't been drinking anything when he picked up the phone, because if he had, he would have spewed it all over his kitchen. "What?" he sputters.

"There is a dance. Next Friday. And there is no way in Westeros that I'm putting up with that alone, so you're coming with me."

Gendry swallows nervously. He remembers high school dances very clearly and with little fondness. The last time he went to one was four years ago, and he can't say that he misses them. On the contrary, he considers himself lucky to have escaped them for what he always assumed would be the rest of his life. "Listen, Arya, I don't think that's a very good idea…"

"No, damn it, you listen to me, Gendry Waters," Arya snaps, cutting him off. "Whatever we did or did not do this morning has nothing to do with this." Gendry can practically hear her blushing. "I am asking you, as a friend, to come and hang out with me on this most miserable of occasions."

"Isn't there an age limit on people you can bring to dances?" Gendry queries warily, searching for any way out of going. He's torn: he feels like he shouldn't spend any more time with Arya, given what happened earlier that day. Despite her arguments to the contrary, he still feels both too old for her and too far out of her social class. At the same time, he can't get her out of his head, and he's coming to understand that the feeling of wanting to see her isn't going to go away anytime soon. The dance presents a dual problem for him, though. He wants to spend time with Arya, sure, but he doesn't want to spend time with Arya in a dark room filled with hormonal teenagers grinding to shitty music. "I just really don't think it's a good idea," he repeats.

"Gendry. I am begging you," Arya pleads, "do not make me endure this alone. I cannot stand dances."

"Don't go, then," he suggests, cupping the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he stands and heads into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

"I have to," Arya moans. "Mom and Sansa are making me. Which is why I'm making you."

"Excuse you," Gendry laughs, "I think I have a choice in the matter."

"You'll come," Arya insists.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Sansa's making her wear a dress!" Gendry hears someone shout in the background, and then hears Arya snarl, "Shut the hell up, Bran!" She turns her attention back to Gendry. "You'll come because I asked you to."

Gendry blinks, trying to understand her reasoning, and sips mildly at his glass of water. "So," he says, "a dress."

"You shut up," Arya mutters sulkily.

"What kind of a dress?"

"Shut up!" Arya repeats. "No kind of a dress!"

"Oh, so you're going naked…"

"No!" her voice reaches an uncharacteristically high pitch with that sharp denial. "I just… I don't want to. And I don't know, because I haven't gotten it yet, and… just… just agree that you're coming, okay, Gendry? Ugh! Stupid!"

Gendry chuckles and, before he can stop himself, agrees: "As milady commands."

Arya makes a loud frustrated noise into the phone and then, before he can say anything else, she hangs up on him.

Gendry stares at the phone in his hand for a moment. Here he is, twenty-one years old, about to head to yet another high school function all because a feisty little girl has hold of his heart. Except she's not a little girl, as she's proven many a time: she's a young woman, fierce as a wolf and bright as the sun. Again Gendry chastises himself. She's far too good for him. She deserves a smart, rich boy headed to a good college, one who can keep up with her both physically and mentally – not just in witty banter, which Gendry considers to be his only asset when it comes to Arya Stark.

He laments all of this aloud to Hot Pie later, as he ambles through the pizza shop's kitchens.

Hot Pie promptly smacks him over the head with a spatula. "What was that for?" Gendry gasps, rubbing at the back of his head.

"You're an idiot," Hot Pie sighs, rolling his eyes. "Here you are, you've got this amazing girl, she's actually interested in you, and you're acting like it's the end of the world."

"It's-"

"Just go to the bloody dance, mate," Hot Pie sighs. "Honestly, it's like _you're _the sixteen-year-old girl here."

"No," protests Gendry, "sixteen-year-old girls aren't nearly this pragmatic." Hot Pie groans and bustles over his pizza.

"Just let yourself be happy, mate," Hot Pie says with a shake of his head. "It's honestly not that hard."

"She's almost six years younger than me. She has a future. She's got a family, and things to do with her life, and I've got-"

"Shut it! I've heard it all before, damn it," Hot Pie interrupts him sharply, and advances towards him with the spatula once again. This time, however, he merely prods Gendry in the chest with it. "She clearly likes you, or at least likes being around you, so the least you can do is do the girl a favor and keep her sane for the night. That's all she wants, right?"

"What?"

"She said she can't stand dances," Hot Pie clarifies. "She wants you to be there to keep her company. She's not asking you to marry her. Calm down."

Gendry doesn't even want to think about marrying Arya Stark. He doesn't want to picture her in a white dress, standing on an altar with pearls tied into her long dark hair. The very thought of Arya as anyone's bride disturbs him: the only white outfit he can feasibly see her in is her fencing garb.

"Besides, if you don't go with her, who knows who she'll end up with?" Hot Pie prompts. "Or, more to the point, given what I know of that girl, what stupid shenanigans she'll get into? For her sake, I think you ought to go and just keep an eye on her."

"Alright, for the Stranger's sake, I'll go!" Gendry caves, and Hot Pie nods, satisfied, and then raps him on the forehead once more with the spatula. This time it's only a light tap, and Gendry hardly even winces, just closes his eyes sedately and rubs his temples. "But you're going to have to loan me a tie," he stipulates.

"Whatever you need, mate," Hot Pie grins. "Now: cheese to table 3."


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note: Sorry that this took so long! Midterms were slowly killing me. To make up for it, here is an exceptionally long chapter (though not the longest so far), and you can expect another chapter sooner rather than later since I'm off school for a week! **

Arya stares blankly at the dress in her hands. "Put it on," says Sansa eagerly, a dazzling smile on her perfect face. The younger Stark just shakes her head, keeping her face schooled in an expressionless mask. "Arya. You're going to the dance. You're wearing a dress."

"I hate dresses," Arya mumbles.

"I know. Now put it on," Sansa commands, thrusting the dress into Arya's chest as forcefully as she dares. Arya glares back at her, seething, but nonetheless pulls her shirt up over her head and exchanges it for the slinky, shiny green dress. It falls down to about mid-thigh and shimmers under the overhead lights, practically glistening. A thin ribbon of deep brown lace sits at its waistline, accenting Arya's trim figure. "Twirl," Sansa squeaks excitedly, and Arya begrudgingly does so.

"Oh, Arya," Catelyn remarks a few minutes later, once Sansa coaxes Arya downstairs, "it's perfect." The girls' mother studies both her daughters carefully, praising Sansa's high-collared Essosi-style dress and commenting appreciatively on the way the cornflower blue silk of the dress complements Sansa's eyes. She moves on to look at Arya, frowning when she sees that Arya's hair simply hangs straight down and that she has nothing on her face. "You couldn't have put some makeup on her?" she asks Sansa.

"She threatened to bite me," Sansa says bitterly, and pulls a compact out to study her own shimmery silver makeup.

"And where are your dates?" Catelyn asks then, glancing anxiously out the door.

Sansa looks critically at Arya and, with a somewhat disdainful sigh, says, "Arya hasn't got one."

Arya doesn't bother to argue, just looks at the ground and then back toward the stairs, listening for the sounds of the elevating mechanism that carries Bran up and down the stairs. She knows that although she's fine with Gendry's age, her mother would probably be far less thrilled to know that her youngest daughter is dating a twenty-two-year-old. _Well, not dating, _thinks Arya, _just… we… _She doesn't know. All she knows is that she asked Gendry to come, as her friend. She loves having him as a friend. He makes her feel safe, but not in an offensive way; generally "safe" spaces threaten Arya, because they threaten her ability to take care of herself and imply that she should lower her defenses. It's not that she doesn't have to do that with Gendry – it's simply that she doesn't mind. She values that far more than she's willing to let on.

"Bran!" calls Catelyn, and the boy wheels out into the hallway, a wrinkled tie in his hands. "Oh, relax, I'll tie it," she volunteers, and though Bran outwardly sulks, Arya knows he's glad that he even gets to wear a tie. He attaches his chair to the elevator and slowly descends, and only once he reaches the ground floor does Arya spot the camera in his lap.

"You're photographing the dance?" she asks skeptically.

"School paper," Bran explains as Catelyn bustles over to him, pulling the tie around his neck while simultaneously attempting to smooth down his auburn waves of hair. "Are Jojen and Meera here yet?"

"See? Bran got a date!" Sansa says accusingly, and Arya sticks out her tongue.

"Yeah, and his date's little brother," she points out, and Sansa merely tosses her red curls over her shoulder.

"Maybe you can date Jojen," Sansa suggests.

"And maybe I could date a towel," Arya scoffs. "Talk about a wet blanket."

Bran sighs and is about to defend his friend when a horn sounds outside. "That'll be Joffrey," Sansa says, almost apprehensively, and Arya sets her jaw and does her best to keep her fists from clenching. "We'll see you later, Mother! Joff is taking us all in his limo."

"Of course he is," Arya mutters, for she'd heard nothing of a limo prior to this exact moment. Reluctantly, she trails outside after Sansa, glad she avoided the chocolate brown pumps and instead opted for a pair of autumn leaf-printed Converse she bought a few years prior. She cannot begin to understand how Sansa is traveling so quickly across the grounds in five-inch stilettos. Bran in his wheelchair and Arya in her Converse are struggling to keep up.

"Where's Gendry?" Bran asks, keeping his voice low.

"Meeting me there," Arya answers, her voice clipped and short. "Aren't Jojen and Meera supposed to be here?"

Bran pulls his phone from his pocket, flips through a few texts, and then returns it to his lap. "They're down at the gate. We'll pick them up in the limo."

"Lovely," Arya groans, "trapped in a confined space with Joffrey _and _the wet blanket."

"Can you at least pretend to be civil? For one night?" Bran asks. "Please? For your favorite brother?"

Arya raises one eyebrow, because though he's a close second, Bran is not her favorite brother and he knows it. Her favorite brother is off at school at the Wall. Her favorite brother turned her away when she needed a place to stay. Her favorite brother prefers the company of his stupid girlfriend. "Fine," she says, and ruffles Bran's hair. He hurries to try and smooth it down again, glaring up at her halfheartedly.

Still, she struggles to keep her attitude in check when she sees Joffrey lean in and press a chaste kiss to her sister's cheek, for she also sees him whisper something in Sansa's ear, and the way that Sansa's shoulders stiffen does not go unnoticed. Arya's fists clench, and her bronze-painted nails dig into her palms, but she does nothing, simply grits her teeth and steps into the limo after her sister and her boyfriend. Sansa scoots in closer to Joffrey and lays her head on his shoulder, the perfect picture of a perfect couple – but her blue eyes are filled with fear and every once in a while her lip quivers. Arya and Bran sit in fizzling, angry silence and can do nothing but watch as Joffrey's arm tightens around Sansa's shoulders.

The tension only defuses a little when Jojen and Meera climb in at the foot of the driveway. Meera is jovial and optimistic as always, quick to tell all three Starks how lovely they look, while Jojen merely grunts his assent and settles in next to Bran. "Nice tie," he says, dipping his head toward the royal blue tie. "Camera?"

"School paper," explains Bran yet again, and Jojen nods.

All five of them remain silent for the remainder of the journey. They all exit the limo – Bran first, via the ramp, and then the Reeds, Arya, and Sansa and Joffrey – and find themselves face to face with a redecorated gymnasium, decked out in spherical lights and many-colored streamers. "It cleans up nice," Arya remarks wryly.

"Suuure it does," Bran says with a mischievous tone to his voice, but before Arya can ask him just what in seven hells he's talking about, Meera wheels him away. She can hear the two of them chatting and giggling gleefully to one another, with Jojen joining in stoically every once in a while.

But Arya can't devote much attention to eavesdropping on them anymore, because now she understands: because there is Gendry, shifting his weight back and forth awkwardly as he stands in front of the gym, his eyes scanning the crowds anxiously before at last they land on her. His face lights up and he starts immediately toward her, and Arya makes a beeline right for him. "Well," she says, once they come to stand opposite one another, "don't you look dapper."

She can't really think of a better word than that. He does clean up nice, though she'll never tell him so without trying to come off as sarcastic; he looks absolutely stunning in a white button-down, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, tucked into a pair of sleek black pants. He has a dark green bowtie around his neck, which is at odds with his rolled-up sleeves, but she decides she likes it.

And then, of course, she realizes she's been staring, so she shoots her gaze up to his face. He simply looks bemused. "Dapper?" he echoes.

"Dapper," Arya asserts, biting back the urge to call him stupid.

"Well, I can't very well say you look dapper," he says, "but damned if you don't look good in a dress." Blood rushes to Arya's cheeks, and she's about to snap at him when she notes that Gendry, too, is blushing ever so slightly. "Look, I… I don't know. What I'm trying to say is, you look nice."

"I look like an oak tree," she mutters, and pulls at the shiny green fabric.

"But a nice oak tree," Gendry insists, and then offers her his arm. "My lady?"

"I will roundhouse kick you in the middle of the dance floor," Arya says, glaring up at him threateningly, but she hooks her arm around his anyways.

"Don't I know it," he chuckles, and then they head inside.

The dance floor is a mass of writhing, heated bodies, all dressed to the nines but for the shoes, which are largely piled up against the wall of the gym. Arya looks down at her Converse and has to smirk; she has no need to abandon _her _shoes at all this night. Instead, she is simply able to tug Gendry into the thick of things and, after studying her classmates for a moment, sling her arms around his neck and start to snake back and forth to the music. Gendry's hands find her waist, and then they're moving not as two separate people but as one fluid entity, hearts beating to the same deep beat of the bass. They shift closer, and Gendry's hands pull further around her so that he is wrapped completely around her waist. Arya presses her head to his chest, and hears him take a deep breath in. "Hells," he breathes, "you even smell nice."

Arya is suddenly glad she lost the fight with Sansa over whether she should wear perfume. Tentatively, she sniffs at Gendry, in hopes that she can tell him that he doesn't smell nice in the slightest, but instead she is hit by a wave of delicious, indescribably attractive cologne. Something twists and burns in the pit of her stomach and she is taken by a sudden urge to wrap her legs around his waist and make out with him. Just as she debates whether or not to do so, a high-pitched yelp cuts through the air, and the entire dance floor freezes.

Arya whips around, searching for the source of the noise, and all too soon her eyes land on Sansa, who is ten feet away clutching her hand to her face. Joffrey stands two feet away from her, his brow furrowed and his hand raised as if to strike again.

And then she sees Bran, just behind them, his eyes on his camera. "I got it," he whispers, and Arya reads his lips. He wheels backwards, melting into the crowd, and Arya pushes through the people in front of her in order to get to her sister.

"What happened?" she demands, but Sansa says nothing, just looks back up at Joffrey with wet blue eyes. "Sansa," says Arya, as she tries to take her sister by the arm. Joffrey swats her away, and Arya draws back her arm to punch him square in the face, but Gendry catches her and pulls her back.

"It's not worth it," he says quietly.

"It's not worth it? Look what he did! Look!"

"I know, Arya, but think of the consequences," Gendry says. "What will has family do to you – and your whole family – if you hit him?"

Arya bites her lip, well aware that Gendry is right, and settles for staring daggers at Joffrey and imagining him dying in a series of progressively more horrible ways. "One day," she hisses at him, and though he doesn't look she knows he is listening, "I will end you."

"Try me, little girl," snarls Joffrey, his eyes still on Sansa. "You'll end up just like your slut sister."

"Oh, that is fucking _it_," Arya snaps, worming her way free of Gendry's grasp. She's halfway to Joffrey again when Bran wheels back in toward them, brandishing his iPhone out for all to see. "Bran?"

He's smirking, of all things, and as he passes, more and more people are drawing out their phones. The entire dance floor is alight with brilliantly lit-up screens, rippling inward until finally Bran wheels to a stop next to Joffrey. "You might want to check Twitter," he says, and pockets his phone once again. One of Joffrey's eyes twitches as he fumbles for his phone, and then, as he does as Bran told him, all the color drains from his face.

"What is this?" he croaks.

"That, dear sweet Joff, is you slapping my sister, going viral," Bran says. "Everyone in this gym who has a Twitter has just retweeted it. Everyone at the Wall has just retweeted it. Everyone at the Twins has just retweeted it. And all of their friends who see it have been instructed to retweet it as well." He pauses, ticks at the touch-screen, and, after a few moments, his smirk broadens. "And now #asshole is trending. Congratulations, Joffrey. You're famous."

"Why would you do this?" Sansa squeaks.

"So that the internet can do what you couldn't – expose your boyfriend for the abusive piece of shit he really is," Bran says.

"I was handling everything fine on my own," Sansa says angrily. "I didn't ask for your help!"

"You didn't ask for anyone's help, and you clearly weren't helping yourself. You would have gone on, wearing that high-collared dress to hide the bruises, staying silent to keep Joffrey appeased. And I can't let you do that, just like I can't let Arya punch Joffrey in the face right now, as much as she wants to," Bran finishes, glancing pointedly at Arya, who lowers her fist dejectedly and crosses her arms.

"Lancel just retweeted it, too," someone remarks from behind Arya.

"Now it's only a matter of time before the paparazzi gets ahold of it," Bran says, tossing his phone from hand to hand. "The question is, Joffrey, what are you going to do about it?"

"You little shit… I wish that fall had killed you!" Joffrey shrieks, and launches himself toward Bran. Arya pounces on him, knocking him to the floor, but before she can land a solid hit to his face, the lights in the gym shut off completely, prompting several terrified screams. A voice that unmistakably belongs to Cersei Lannister comes on over the P.A.

"All students, please evacuate the building. The dance has been shut down early."

The screams in the dark persist as all the students jostle one another to get toward the door. Arya feels someone forcibly pulling her off of Joffrey, and she panics for a moment before she is able to determine Gendry's face in the darkness. Together they push through the crowds, making their way toward the door, and Arya swears she sees Jaime Lannister pass by, going in the other direction. Behind her, she hears more screams and at least one yelp of undeniable pain. She glances over her shoulder, but it's too dark and there are too many people moving too quickly for her to determine who cried out. Gendry ushers her outside, and then they stand together in the brisk autumn night, clinging to one another and breathing heavily as Arya searches the surging crowd for her siblings. She spots Sansa a little ways away, being half-carried half-dragged through the students by a man with a heavily scarred face. She can hear Bran's voice, somewhere still inside, but she can't see where he is.

"We need to get out of here," Gendry says, and as much as Arya is worried about her family, she is in no position to argue. She nods, takes Gendry's hand, and follows him out to his car. "What was that?" he asks the second the car doors close behind them. Arya shakes her head; she doesn't know any more than he does. "I mean, that was your sister's boyfriend, yeah?"

"Probably not anymore," Arya says.

"But he hits her," Gendry says.

"Yeah, but she won't do anything about it. Which is why… you know."

"You shouldn't have tackled him," Gendry says gently.

"Well, somebody had to do it."

"Did they?"

Arya fixes him with a steady gaze. "If I could kill him without any repercussions, I would. I mean that."

"Just because he hits your sister? That's answering violence with violence, Arya, that's not-"

"You heard what he said to Bran. He said he wished he'd died when he fell," Arya insists. "That's not right."

"Neither is you wanting to kill the guy, Arya," Gendry says. "Really. You don't want to be like him, do you?"

"No," she admits sulkily.

"You're better than he is. I know that. You know that. Come on, I'm taking you home." He smiles over at her, and she nods once, her eyes cast down to the ground. "I'd offer for you to stay at my place again, but I think, after that, you guys need some family time." Again Arya nods, and leans her head back against the headrest, turning her face toward the window as Gendry drives. A light drizzle starts, freckling the windshield with cool water, and she watches a pair of raindrops race each other to the back of the window. All too soon, Gendry's car pulls up outside the Red Keep and he turns the engine off and turns to her.

He doesn't say anything this time, just reaches over and tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear. She turns toward him, her eyes flickering up and down his face, and lets his hand linger on her cheek for a long time before she says, "I don't want to go inside."

"I know," he says, "but you have to."

"I know." She sighs, looks down, and presses open the door.

"Arya Stark," Gendry says as she stretches one leg outside. She pauses and turns back toward him. "You really do look good," he says sheepishly. "I'm glad we went, even if the night was 'ruined' by all accounts."

Arya blushes a little in the rain, but smiles back at him and says, "I'll see you soon, Gendry," before slamming the car door closed and trotting back up to the house once more.

Sansa and Bran are already there, though markedly less wet from the rain than Arya is. Catelyn sits with Arya's siblings at the kitchen table, a worried expression on her face, though that fades once she sees Arya standing in the doorway. "My gods," she murmurs, and runs to pull her youngest daughter in for a hug. Arya resists the urge to squirm free and tentatively returns the embrace, patting her mother on the shoulder once or twice before asking to be let go. "What took you so long?"

"Got trapped inside the building for a little while," Arya lies smoothly. Bran arches one eyebrow, but says nothing. Sansa doesn't even question it. "I'm fine."

Catelyn looks her up and down and then finally sighs. "Yes, you're right. You're fine. How did you manage to get out after Bran? He's in a wheelchair for heaven's sake."

"People cleared the way for me some of the time," Bran says with a shrug. "Being crippled has its perks."

"You're all alright, though," says Catelyn, "and that's what's important. Why don't you head up to bed, then? It's been a long night for all of you."

Arya and Bran exchange a wary glance and head toward the stairs, only for Catelyn to call Arya back. "Actually, Arya: a word. Bran, you go on ahead, I'll only keep your sisters for a moment." Again, Arya and Bran exchange a look, but Arya doubles back nonetheless and sits down next to Sansa at the kitchen table.

"I don't know quite how to put this," Catelyn says slowly, "but you're both leaving tomorrow."

"What?" Arya and Sansa gasp in unison.

"I've already purchased the plane tickets. I'm sorry. It's just not safe for you here anymore. I was already thinking of sending you away, but after tonight… I just can't justify keeping you here when you're in this much danger," Catelyn says.

"Danger? Clearly we're fine, you said so yourself," Arya sputters. "I can't leave, I need to stay here – what about Bran and Rickon?"

"Bran's too fragile right now to go anywhere. I know he puts up a strong front, but he's too new at this to survive on his own. And Rickon is too young," Catelyn says. "I'm sorry. It's just you girls, and it's just for the rest of the school year."

"And where exactly are we going?" Sansa asks prudently.

"You'll be headed to private school at the Eyrie. You can live with your Aunt Lysa. My old friend Petyr will accompany you on the ride up, just to make sure that you're safe while on the journey."

"Pervy Petyr?" Sansa groans.

"He'll keep you safe," Catelyn reiterates tiredly.

"What about me?" Arya asks.

"You're going to private school in Braavos. Your fencing teacher apparently put in a good word for you there just after the tournament, so you'll be spending half your time on academics and the other half on fencing."

A few weeks ago, Arya would have jumped at the opportunity to go abroad and study fencing for almost an entire school year. Now, though, she has too much to leave behind. She has Joffrey to handle, and she and Bran weren't done snooping. And Gendry… She can't just leave him. She doesn't want to tether herself down because of a boy, but if she's being honest with herself, he's the main reason she's driven to stay. "Mother, I can't just leave," she tries.

"Jojen Reed was almost killed at that dance tonight," Catelyn interrupts harshly. "He was trampled and is now hospitalized with brain trauma, a broken arm, and a broken leg. I will not have one of you girls be next. I would be moving this whole family out of here if I could, but as it is, with the business agreement, I at least have to stay. And I've already told you about Bran and Rickon."

"But Mother-"

"No buts. You're both going, and that's final. Your flights leave in the morning. I'll see you off then." Catelyn stands and exits the room, leaving her daughters to sit, dumbfounded, at the kitchen table, one grateful and the other mortified.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note: I feel so bad, since I always say it won't take so long to update... and then it takes longer to update than I expect. Hopefully I can get back on the once-a-week, chapters-go-up-on-Sunday schedule, though. This chapter is all kinds of angst, but it does include the return of several minor characters and the introduction of another two, so... get excited? As always, thank you for all the reviews, follows, and favorites!**

Chapter Ten

_Mom replaced our phones and blocked our Facebooks. Tell Gendry I'm sorry. I have no way to contact him. I didn't want to leave._

_You know I'm sorry, too. If it were up to me, I'd have stayed. Sansa probably thinks the same, but it's better for her to have gone._

_I'll miss you, Bran, but I'll be home next summer. Give this to Gendry?_

_ Arya_

It's a simple enough note. Attached is a simple silver ring, completely plain in all respects other than a tiny leaf branded into the side. A green string is wrapped around it, with a small tag attached: "_I suck at shop. I'll leave the metal-working to you from now on."_

Bran holds both the note and the ring in his hand, settled neatly into his lap as he stares at Arya's empty room. She and Sansa have only been gone three days. He's read the note hundreds of times, and Catelyn has explained the circumstances to him as many times, but still he struggles to understand how alone he is now. All his brothers save Rickon are gone, and now his sisters are gone as well.

He sets the note back down on Arya's bed and wheels back out into the hallway. It's high time he went and spoke to Gendry.

(four months later)

The hammer clashes against the metal of the sword, sending a loud ringing through the sterile, white shop. Mister Mott pokes his head in and nods appreciatively. "You learn quickly," he says, and Gendry nods grimly. "I keep telling you, you shouldn't wear that while you're working. Could get caught on something." He motions to the chain around Gendry's neck, and Gendry sighs heavily. He doesn't remove the chain, though, simply draws back and tugs it free of his shirt so that he can study the lightly tarnished ring that hangs on the chain.

He hasn't taken it off, other than to sleep, since Bran delivered the note. Arya's brother explained his mother's reasoning as best he could, and Gendry could just imagine Arya's indignation at being sent away for her own protection – "I can protect myself, thank you very much," he can perfectly picture he snapping – but it still took him longer than it should have to grasp that she was gone. Bran handed him the ring with calm, still hands, pressing it into Gendry's course palm as gently as he could.

It was too small for Gendry's large fingers, so he slipped it onto a chain and hung it around his neck instead. It hangs just above his heart, every day, a constant reminder that she exists, that she'll come home – as if he needs reminding.

The ring starts to hang a little heavier, though, when two months after Arya disappears, Bran reappears and says, with a light shake of his head, "She's not coming home this summer." And when Gendry goes to ask "when?" Bran only shakes his head once more.

"There's been an order for several dozen rapiers," Mr. Mott says. "They're making one of those fancy period films with all the sword-fighting, you know? There'll be a lot more work for the two of us coming up."

Gendry smiles weakly and wipes the sweat from his brow. _Rapiers. _

Hot Pie comes in to watch Gendry work a few days later. He brings him a meatball sandwich and a mug of hot chocolate, but Gendry ignores both and continues whaling away on the thin strip of metal that will soon become a rapier. "I'd say you seem happier," Hot Pie remarks, "but I'd be lying."

Gendry whacks the anvil again, turns the blade, and draws back his hammer once more.

"This job does suit you better, though," Hot Pie adds. "A costume armorer. Who'd have thought?"

Again, Gendry smacks down on the rapier, receiving a satisfying clanging noise in return. He turns the blade on the anvil again and prepares to strike once more.

"You really ought to get out more, though," Hot Pie observes. "You're starting to look like that suit of armor behind you." Gendry pauses to look at the aforementioned suit of armor, and then turns back to Hot Pie, who is doing his level best to mimic the suit's scowling face. "Look, mate," he says gently, "I know you're still upset about it. But she might not ever come home. I know it's tough, but… you really ought to try and move past it. Go out, meet some girls. Get a girlfriend, you know? Live a little."

"Thanks for the sandwich, Hot Pie," says Gendry, and then he strikes the anvil once more.

The rapier, too thin at one point, breaks in two and clatters to the floor.

Gendry thinks a lot about what Hot Pie said. It isn't that he hasn't tried to stop thinking of Arya; on the contrary, he's tried every day for four months to stop thinking of her. But the very act of trying to forget her requires that he remember her, and remember all the fleeting conversations in the rec center, the fights, the wrestling, the kissing, that dance… He can't help but remember it all. There is no escaping her. She's like a shadow, constantly haunting him but completely intangible – for the moment, at least. He believes she will come home. He just doesn't know when.

He's working the desk at the front of Mott's Costume Armory when the girl walks in. She's small, tomboyish, with long brown hair pulled back into a braid. "Can I help you?" he asks, waiting for her to turn towards him so that he can see her face. He wants so badly to believe that it's Arya, but… she turns, and he sees that it's not her. It's a different girl, equally pixie-ish, but this girl's eyes are brown, not grey.

"Yeah," she says, and the voice is completely different, more high-pitched and feminine than Arya's sarcastic drawl, "I know this is a costume shop, basically, but I need a sword. For fencing? Do you guys do that?"

Gendry gestures to the back room, which is filled with weapons. "Left wall, you'll find the rapiers."

"Great," she says, and grins broadly, displaying perfectly straight white teeth. "Thanks!"

Gendry stares after her. The resemblance is, in some aspects, uncanny, but then, in many ways, she's completely different from Arya. For one thing, it's been at least two minutes and they're not arguing. For another, she looks at least two years older than Arya – much closer to his own age.

The girl is pacing in front of the fencing equipment, clearly conflicted, so Gendry walks over to her. "Know what you're looking for?" he asks.

"Not really," she admits. "Well, I mean, I do, I just don't know…"

Gendry reaches over her, pulls a rapier from a rack high up, and hands it to her without a word. She hefts it from hand to hand, and then jabs at the air a few times. Gendry can't help but notice how clumsy her strokes are; clearly the girl doesn't have nearly so much experience with the art of fencing as Arya does. "You're pretty new at this, aren't you?" he asks, and she blushes. "That ought to be a good starter for you, then. Come on, I'll ring you up."

He heads back to the register, with the girl trailing almost meekly behind him. She puts the rapier up on the desk, and Gendry punches in the price, reading it off to her somewhat guiltily. The girl grimaces and hands him a credit card. "Can I get some ID on this?" Gendry requests, setting the card down next to the register. Again, the girl frowns, but pulls out an ID and pushes it across to him. "Willow Heddle?" Gendry reads unsurely, and she nods, finally smiling once again. He runs the card through and hands both back to her.

"And you're… Gendry?" she says, reading off his nametag. He nods, glad that she got the hard G right. Hot Pie's words from earlier ring through his head – _Get a girlfriend, you know? Live a little. _"Well, Gendry," Willow says, "thank you for all your help."

She turns to go, and is halfway across the store before Gendry manages to find his tongue again. "Hey, Willow," he calls, and she stops almost immediately to look back at him. "I, uh… this is going to sound stupid, but, uh, do you want to go get a drink sometime?"

"I'm only nineteen," she points out, laughing.

"Coffee, then?" Gendry tries hopefully.

"Coffee, yeah," Willow says. "You want my number?" Gendry nods, breathless, and she heads back over to scrawl an almost illegible telephone number on the bottom half of her receipt. "You free on Friday?" she asks, and when Gendry nods, she winks. "I guess I'll see you then!" And with that, she disappears, leaving Gendry to sit and contemplate what exactly he's just done.

(two months later)

Arya stands at the edge of the crowd, hood pulled up over her ears, and watches the swordsmen in the middle of the ring jab and swing wildly at each other. "Do you see, girl?" the man next to her murmurs, "there is no art to it. They attack, like animals."

Arya doesn't comment, just nods. Her companion continues: "See how the large man stumbles after he lunges; he is not balanced. If the little one goes for his ankles, he will fall. If this were a real fight, he would already be dead."

"The little guy won't do that," Arya says. "Look at how he fights – he's so timid. He's just defensive."

"A girl learns well," the man beside her says with a smile, and she looks up at him. "A girl is very observant."

"Does 'a girl' get to see you without your mask on?" Arya asks, but the man merely smirks – or at least she assumes it's a smirk, for she can only see the half of his mouth that is not obscured by the mask. "Come on, Jaqen, I've known you for six months. What could possibly be on your face that I couldn't handle?"

"A girl can handle many things. A man prefers to keep his identity hidden."

"I already know your name," Arya says irritably, "how important could your face possibly be?"

"A girl has no idea," Jaqen says wryly. "Focus on the fight."

Arya turns back to the men fighting in the circle and folds her arms against her chest. "They're not particularly exciting."

"A girl is biased."

"You said it yourself – there's no art to it. One is constantly on a sloppy offense, the other on a clean defense. It's not interesting to watch. I kind of just want it to be over."

"A girl could end it," Jaqen remarks, and Arya grimaces.

"It's not my fight."

"Does it matter?"

"It's not my fight," she repeats, and slouches back against the wall. "I'll let them finish. I'll take the next one."

The fight continues for another ten seconds, and then finally the smaller fencer dips down, throwing the larger fighter off balance, and lands a solid hit to his chest. The large man topples to the ground and rolls away, and the small man grins, revealing a single gold tooth. A man in a top hat steps into the center of the ring and calls out "NEXT" in Braavosi, and Arya glides into the ring, hood still up. Her opponent wanders in, nonchalant and aloof – also hooded, but with parts of his face in the light. Arya sets her jaw and bites back the urge to smile; she's fought this one before, multiple times.

He throws back his hood to reveal dyed-blue hair, cut long and wavy so that it hangs over half of his face. His eyes, which she knows from past experience are actually a strange shade of violet, look almost blue under this light and under his hair. "Griff," Arya says in mock sweetness, and he freezes. The leering smirk fades from his face as she pushes the hood back from her face and a faint gasp spreads through the crowd. Murmurs of 'Cat' and 'Cat of the Canals' ripple outward, all the way to the edge of the crowd, where Jaqen leans casually against the wall, his red hair hiding the half of his face that isn't covered by the white mask. Arya glances at her teacher to see if he's watching, but he's feigning disinterest and is instead inspecting his nails. She turns back to Griff Young, who shifts nervously in front of her and then draws his sword from his belt. Arya pulls hers out, swift as lightning, and settles into an easy fighting stance.

Griff lunges, and Arya easily cuts under him, hitting him once in the shoulder. They both ease back, trying to drown out the roar of the crowd. Griff grimaces, and then goes in, at a different angle this time, but Arya reads him look a book and drops to the floor, rolling in the opposite direction so that she can scoot forward across the floor, pop up behind him, and press the tip of her rapier to the center of his back. He whirls around, fury in those blue-purple eyes, and then spits to the side. Arya grins and taunts him with one finger. The crowd loses it, and Arya dances back and forth on her feet.

Griff feints in the same direction he just went, and Arya makes toward the ground, but Griff cuts her off and locks eyes with her as she moves to block him. For a moment, they look shockingly blue, and she remembers a different pair of striking blue eyes, and forgets where she is for a moment, and then Griff lands a hit just below her collarbone. Arya curses herself silently, but gets up quickly and takes the offense. Griff doesn't have time to react as she slices in toward him, jabbing the rapier into his chest so hard that it bends ever so slightly.

The fight ends as quickly as it began, with Arya standing in front of Griff – easily a foot shorter than he, but seemingly ten times his size. The crowd chants her name – Cat, Cat, Cat, Cat, Cat of the Canals – and she bows her head ever so slightly. Griff dips his chin, and she smirks up at him. "Well fought, _Cat_," he says, putting deliberate emphasis on her name, and Arya glares up at him with steely grey eyes.

"If only I could say the same, _Griff_," she says with equal emphasis and just a hint of contempt. "That was hardly any fun at all."

"It's no fun fighting you," he says.

"Oh, please," she hisses so that only he can hear. "You love fighting me."

He runs his tongue over his lips and then says, "Later, Cat," before backing away, to the shameful boos of the crowd, and melting into the people around him. Arya goes to the announcer, collects her winnings, and pulls her hood back up as she heads back to Jaqen.

"You let him hit you," he says.

"I did not," Arya argues, "he got a legitimate hit on me that time."

"A girl should have been able to avoid that," Jaqen says, his voice level as ever.

"I know."

"A girl learns from her mistakes," Jaqen says.

"Yes."

"A girl seemed lost for a moment."

"I wasn't lost," Arya lies, but she can't shake those blue eyes from her mind.

She hasn't thought about anyone from home in four months. Ever since she met Jaqen, she's only focused on fighting and fencing. She hardly remembers her family – she's had no contact with any of her siblings or her mother since she got here, and there is no way for her to contact… she can't even think his name. She won't allow herself to think of him.

Arya doesn't need that. She's Cat of the Canals now. She's focused, and driven. She could very easily be lethal, should she ever make the choice to take a life. She doesn't have time to even be thinking of a stupid pizza boy with his stupid blue eyes and his stupid tousled black hair.

"A girl seems distracted," Jaqen notes, mildly amused.

"I'm fine," Arya says through gritted teeth. "It won't happen again."

"As a girl says," Jaqen says, "whatever."

Griff is waiting for her outside. Arya tries her best to pretend she hasn't seen him, but he spots her immediately and moves over to her. "You really kicked my ass this time," he says, "kind of like the first time. Though I like to think I've gotten better since then."

"You haven't," Arya says, and refuses to let herself think of the first time she fought Griff, or of what happened directly afterward.

"Listen, Cat, do you want to…"

"No," Arya says. "Whatever it is, no."

"But-"

"No."

"You can't just- Look, Arya, you know, that night a month ago, I…"

"It was a mistake," Arya says harshly. "I shouldn't have… just. I shouldn't have. Not with you. I have… I don't need you. I don't want you."

"You seemed to need me that night," he drawls, and Arya shoves him out of the way.

"Prick."

Griff darts back in front of her, eyes wide and thankfully much more purple under the moonlight. "Just come out with me for a drink or something. For your win, yeah? Nothing else has to happen, and hey, if it does, I'm not gonna complain..."

Arya narrows her eyes and pushes past him again.

"Why are you so cold, Arya Stark?" Griff laments, and Arya whirls around and delivers a knuckle-bruising punch to his face.

"Two things, Griff," says Arya coldly. "One, I'm from the North. Cold is what we do. And two," she advances on him, grabs him by the balls, and squeezes. "Call me by that name again, and I'll castrate you."

He's gasping for breath when she lets him go and dusts her hands off on her pants.

"Are we clear?" she asks.

"Crystal," he wheezes, and she smiles.

"Well then, Griff Young," she says, still with a cold edge to her voice, "I guess this is goodbye."

He finally catches his breath and manages to scrape "later, Cat" out through gritted teeth. Arya stalks away and then, with one last thing on her mind, turns back towards him on one heel.

"One more thing," she says, and Griff looks up, still clearly very much in pain. "You might want to re-dye your hair soon. Your roots are starting to come in silver."


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note: Aw, look at this. Actually on time. I've started doing NaNoWriMo as well, though, so I'll probably be late to update (or, frighteningly, won't update at all) throughout the rest of the month. Enjoy all the ships in this chapter. Every single one of them. So many ships. I am forever grateful for the faves and reviews and whatnot. **

"A girl has mail," Jaqen says as he breezes past her and into her dorm room.

"Walking right into your students' rooms. Professional as always, I see," Arya says groggily, but follows Jaqen back over to her desk.

"A girl should not be so judgmental when a girl is wearing no pants," Jaqen clucks his tongue, but then winks at her through the mask. She's known him for a year and a half, and still she's never seen his entire face.

"Yeah, well, at least one of us gets laid," Arya mutters, though she still looks down at her ensemble somewhat self-consciously. She's in her panties and a well-worn The Rebellion t-shirt whose origins she prefers not to think about. "You broke into my P.O. box?"

"Breaking is such a harsh word. A man prefers to think of it as structuring a close relationship with the lock." He tosses her a white envelope, trimmed with silver, which she tears open unceremoniously.

"Well, at least you didn't read it," she remarks, and unfolds a creamy rectangle of cardstock from within the envelope. "'Dearest Arya…'" she reads, and pulls a face. "Fuck, seriously? Who writes this shit?"

Jaqen shrugs, and motions for her to keep reading.

"'You have been cordially invited to the wedding of Robb Stark and Jeyne Westerling…' blah, blah, date and time blah, blah – in King's Landing?" She looks up at Jaqen, who again only has a shrug to offer. She turns the card over and discovers a handwritten note on the back, which she reads in silence.

_Arya – I know we haven't spoken in a year, because, as I told you when we last spoke, it's too dangerous for us to communicate electronically or with old-fashioned letters. Things have only gotten worse here since I sent you and Sansa away. But Robb is getting married, and he really misses you – I really miss you, too. We all do. Robb at least has seen Sansa, since she's nowhere near as far away as you are. I know it's risky, but this is really important. We'll send you back to Braavos on a roundabout route the second this is all over. Please come. With love, Catelyn_

"A girl looks shocked," Jaqen observes.

"My brother's getting married," Arya says. "He's only twenty-three – what is he thinking?"

"Perhaps it is a political thing. A girl comes from money, and if the wedding is in King's Landing…" he trails off as Arya glares at him, and holds his hands up apologetically. "The name on the envelope, and on the card, says Arya Stark. A man remembers a few things about the Stark name." He pauses, and studies Arya quietly. "A girl seems very tired. Long night?"

"Tell me about it. I had the weirdest dream – like I was a dog, or a wolf, or something, and… what's it to you anyways?"

"A man is simply curious."

"A man ought to keep his nose out of other people's business," Arya snaps.

Jaqen smirks and stands. "A girl will be gone for a week, yes? A man will reschedule lessons accordingly. Not that a girl needs much more training."

"Thanks, Jaqen," Arya says, but her eyes are still on the invitation in front of her. Jaqen struts back out the door, takes one last look at the room, and chuckles quietly to himself.

"A girl should wash her pillowcase," he suggests, still laughing. "There are traces of blue dye on it. Wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong impression."

Arya's face turns beet-red, but she simply nods curtly and waits for Jaqen to leave. Once she hears the door close behind him, she casts a wary glance over at the bed. Sure enough, there's a faint blue patch left on her pillowcase from Griff's impromptu sleepover the night before. "That little prick," she mutters, and snatches the pillow up from the bed.

She knows she shouldn't let… whatever this is with Griff keep happening. They've slept together on a regular basis for several months now, with a few intermittent hook-ups before then, but every time, Arya feels nothing. She's tried, really she has, and she's well aware that he's a very attractive guy, but she just can't conjure any actual romantic attraction.

The worst part is that she knows he really cares for her; he's told her too much about himself for this to be just casual sex for him as well. He's told her about his family, even though he's never met most of them. Once he even told her his 'real name,' though it sounded even more ridiculous to Arya than "Griff Young." Who in their right mind would name their child Aegon? Arya can remember learning about some old kings named Aegon, before Westeros reformed into a republic, but she can't imagine why anyone nowadays would want to name their child that. And though Griff has told her many times about his heritage, and how important he hypothetically is to the future of Westeros, she still can't quite grasp why he felt the need to dye his hair blue of all colors.

She's told him many times to dye it red, or yellow, or even green. She's always said it's just to "change it up," because she can't tell him it's because his blue hair makes his purple eyes look blue. She can't tell him that blue is a reminder. Blue hurts.

She sighs and pulls the pillowcase off the pillow, ready to destroy the evidence before she sets to packing for her journey home.

Arya spends the entirety of the plane ride resolutely not thinking about Gendry. She thinks about what to do about Griff, because certainly she can't allow that to go on any longer. She thinks about a new sequence of moves she learned with Jaqen, and runs them over again and again in her head. She even thinks about her academic courses, though they take up very little of her time now. She thinks about her family, whom she hasn't seen or heard from in over a year. She thinks of Jon and Bran and Rickon and Robb – who is getting married, which she still can't believe – and even of Sansa, though they've hardly ever seen eye to eye. She thinks of Nymeria, her dog, whom she now realizes she's missed very much. She wonders if she can bring Nym back to school with her, but immediately shoots that idea down; no pets in the dorms.

She thinks about everything she left behind in Westeros that isn't Gendry. She thinks about all the things she left in Braavos. She wonders if she packed all the things she needed to pack. She wonders if she'll feel out of place in King's Landing, since she now feels so at home in Braavos.

She thinks about everything that isn't Gendry.

Catelyn pulls Arya into one of the tightest embraces Arya's ever felt when they finally reunite next to the baggage claim. Over her mother's shoulder, Arya can see Sansa, resplendent in a blue sweater-dress with her hair in perfect red curls, Bran still in his wheelchair albeit now with broader shoulders and his hair cut differently so that it spikes up in front, Rickon now a foot taller, and, on the end, Robb in a button-down and black slacks, a pretty brown-eyed girl with shoulder-length wavy chestnut hair on his arm. "Mother," Arya wheezes, "I can't breathe."

"Oh," Catelyn says, and releases her, "I'm so sorry, dear. Of course you can't. And you must have missed your siblings, too. I'll get your bag, honey, okay?"

Arya stands and studies her siblings, noticing immediately that Jon is missing. She doesn't want that to be the first thing she says to her siblings since getting home, though, so she blinks and goes first to Rickon, who is the furthest to the left. "You're taller than me now, huh?" she says, and he grins goofily back down at her.

"Hey, sis," he says, and Arya is startled to hear that his voice has started to drop as well. He's lanky and his limbs are still too long for his body, so that he vaguely resembles an auburn-haired baby deer, but he looks infinitely more grown-up than the child that Arya left behind. She moves to Bran next, and bends down so that they're eye to eye. He sits in his wheelchair, straight-backed and proud, and smiles warmly back at her.

"It's good to see you again," he says. "I expect all kinds of fun stories, you know. Sansa's told us loads." At that he winks up at his oldest sister, who flushes and tugs at the sleeves of her dress. "Be sure to compare notes with her on the boys you've met," Bran advises. "I know I have."

Arya rolls her eyes. "It's good to see you, too, little brother. I see we're still making Sansa uncomfortable at every turn?" She stands and moves over to her sister, who pulls her into a tight hug, which, though not as suffocating as Catelyn's, still has Arya struggling to breathe. "I promise I won't grill you too hard about your sex-capades," she says once Sansa lets her go.

"What are they _teaching _you over there in Braavos?" Sansa laughs warmly. She looks so much happier and healthier than when Arya left, Arya can't help but smile honestly back.

"Fencing, mostly," Arya says, and moves toward Robb. She hasn't really seen him in two years, and it's hard for her to fathom how much older he looks. He has a full beard, cut neatly around his square jaw, and his blue eyes, while still bright and youthful, have a sort of aged wisdom to them now.

"Oh, little sister," he says, "you've grown up. This is Jeyne, my fiancée." Jeyne smiles shyly and nods, and looks as if she's about to speak when Catelyn returns and leads them all away and out into a rented limo.

"Nice to know we still live in the lap of luxury," Arya remarks to Bran as she sits down beside him.

He frowns and shakes his head. "We're mostly forced onto the lap of Cersei," he explains. "Robert died a couple weeks after you left, and no one could figure out what was wrong with him. Now Cersei's in charge, with Jaime doing all of her dirty work, and they've got all this money since they partnered with the Tyrells as well. Mom tried to get out of the contract, but we're stuck in there for the next eight years, as of now. It was a ten-year business deal, apparently, which Cersei is eager to renew.

Arya looks down at him and quirks up an eyebrow.

Bran sighs and finishes, "So this is not our limo. Nothing is ours. They own us, even though technically it's our money."

"I assume Joffrey's still the king of assholes?" Arya asks, and Bran simply groans in response. "What about Myrcella and Tommen? Did they turn out alright?"

"Wouldn't know about Myrcella; she went off to private school in Dorne around the same time you left for Braavos. Tommen's a sweet kid, though. He and Rickon hang out every now and then. I think he'll be headed off to private school at the Eyrie next year, though, which could be a problem since Sansa still lives there, and if Cersei and then Joffrey find out, then…"

Across from them, Sansa shudders almost imperceptibly. Arya sets her jaw and forces her hands to remain relaxed rather than clenched into fists.

"But that's not why you're back in town," Bran says brightly. "This is a happy time. Robb's getting married! I'd propose a toast if I were anywhere near of age, and if I had a drink to toast with."

"A toast!" Arya shouts and punches her fist into the air.

"A toast!" Bran and Rickon echo, and then Sansa joins in. Catelyn regards them with a small smile and a shake of her head and then lifts her own fist as well. "A toast," she says, much more subdued, and they all laugh.

Arya is quite pleased with herself for having managed to avoid wearing a dress since Homecoming, but that pleasure dissipates quickly as Sansa runs around her with a measuring tape. "We all thought you'd be the same size as when you left," Sansa laments, "but you've grown."

Arya shrugs. She hadn't really noticed, but she guesses she must have grown an inch or two. She's five-four now, a fact for which she's very proud. "The dress is going to be short, and probably too tight in the chest," Sansa sighs. "There's not really anything I can do about that."

"I can just wear something else," Arya suggests.

"Absolutely not. You're a bridesmaid, you'll wear a bridesmaid's dress!" Sansa shoots her down immediately, and starts coiling the measuring tape back up. "And you'll actually let me do your hair this time, or the Seven help me…"

"Fine. But just because it's for Robb."

A few days later, Arya stands next to Sansa as Jeyne advances down the aisle toward Robb, a crown of yellow flowers atop her head. She watches as the yellow flowers are swapped for silver-painted roses with a flowing white veil attached. Arya glances over at Sansa and sees that she's crying, but there's a smile on her face, so Arya doesn't question it, just smiles as Robb presses a kiss first to Jeyne's hand and then to her lips.

And then the doors at the back of the Sept slam open, and Arya whips her head toward them just in time to see Joffrey Baratheon raising a gun up toward Robb, with Jaime Lannister and a dozen sunglass-wearing security guards similarly armed behind him. Sansa screams as she sees them too, and Arya dives for the floor as Joffrey fires a shot. Arya has no time to look and see if Robb was hit – a dozen guns are going off and there's blood on the ground.

She wants, more than anything, to charge head-on at Joffrey and beat the living shit out of him, but with his uncle – father, she remembers – and twelve trained armsmen behind him, she doesn't stand a chance. She army-crawls along the ground until she reaches the wall, and then begins to crouch and inch along it. One of the soldiers spots her and aims at her, but then a massive, furry force barrels into him and knocks him over. The wolfish dog gnaws at the soldier's head for a moment before continuing on to the next one, and Arya thinks for a moment that it might be her Nymeria, but no – it's Bran's dog, Summer.

Her eyes widen as she realizes that Bran has no way to sneak out; confined to his wheelchair, he must simply sit and hope he isn't attacked, and maybe, if he sees an opening, do his best to wheel out of there. She scans the room and spots him on the other side of the Sept, slumped over in his wheelchair, and she bites back a scream as she realizes it's probably too late.

Another soldier spots her, and she flattens herself against the floor again, rolling to the side and narrowly avoiding a precisely-aimed shot. She leaps to her feet and lunges for the man's torso, twisting his arm to the side so that his next shot fires at the ceiling. She manages to wrest the gun from his grip and turn it on him, grey eyes narrowed, and then she breathes, "Get out, now, and don't you dare call for backup, or I will fire this into your face."

The man sucks in a sharp breath and nods vigorously before turning tail and running. Arya does a quick check of the room once more, noting that both Robb and Jeyne lie collapsed on the ground, that Catelyn is slung over a pew, dripping with her own blood, that Bran is still slumped in the same position in his wheelchair, and that Sansa and Rickon are nowhere to be seen. She looks around for Joffrey, but he, too, is missing, so she does the only thing left to do and runs.

Only once she's made it several blocks from the Sept does she realize that she has nowhere to go. She can't go back to the little house next to the Red Keep – that would be the first place the Lannisters' men would look for any survivors. She doesn't have anywhere else to stay. She has no phone, so she can't call Jon and a) ask why he wasn't at the wedding and b) thank him profusely for not being at the wedding and thus living to see another day. She doesn't have any money to use a pay phone and do that either. All she has is the dress on her body and her own two feet. She kicked off the heels the second she left the Sept, and is now jogging barefoot and aimless through the streets of King's Landing.

She passes Hot Pie's pizza shop and winces. There's always one more thing she can try, though she's loathe to do so. She doesn't know what will happen if she sees him again. She simultaneously wants to see him, needs to see him, and doesn't want to have anything to do with him for fear that she'll drag him into this and, even worse, that she'll want to stay and not go back to Braavos.

At this point, though, she doesn't have much choice. She could try to crash with Hot Pie, but he'd just call Gendry anyway. She could try and stop by the rec center, and see if Syrio ever returned, but knowing her luck, she'd go in when Gendry was working, and then she'd be in the exact same position.

_This is it, then, _she thinks. _This is how we meet again. _And she starts running again, through the streets she left behind two years ago, until she comes to his apartment building. She walks, rather than runs, up the stairs, and then she comes to his door and just stands there, unprepared even to knock.

Somehow, she wills her hand up to the door and raps her knuckles against it twice. Watching it, she realizes her hand is shaking; her whole body is trembling, whether from cold or from fear or from trauma, she doesn't know.

And when Gendry answers the door, she wants nothing more than to crumple into an exhausted heap on the floor.

He can't believe what he's seeing. He heard the knocks, and he didn't know what to expect. Every time, of course, he wants it to be her. Usually, it's Willow, which he's fine with. Sometimes, it's Hot Pie. On a couple of occasions, it's been Bran.

But no, this time, it's actually Arya Stark there before him, her dark hair in disheveled curls, damp from sweat, her grey eyes wide, blood all over her face. Her entire body is shaking. "Arya?" he chokes, and she blinks up at him. "What in seven hells happened?"

She shakes her head and whispers, "Can I come in?"

He wants to let her in. Gods, does he want to let her in.

But she's been gone for almost two years, without so much as a peep, and he has a different life now. He's not a pizza boy any longer, he's a costume armorer. He's twenty-four years old. He has a serious girlfriend and a steady job and now, even more than before, he's an adult, damn it, and he can't just fall back into this ridiculous routine with this kid that even now he's still in love with. "No," he says, and it breaks him even to say it. "Not until you tell me something."

She bites her lip and he grips the sides of the door, because he so desperately wants to kiss her and pull her into his arms and make whatever has just happened go away, but he knows he has to hold his ground. "Okay," Arya says, and grimaces as she says, "shoot."

"It's been almost two years."

"Yes."

"You didn't write. You didn't call. Your Facebook was gone – and yeah, I know, Catelyn deleted it, but you could have made a new one. You didn't email or… or anything. You could have been dead for all I knew. Hells, I told myself you were dead a couple times, since I thought it would make it easier. My question is, why?"

Arya looks up at him and simply says, "I couldn't."

"That's not enough."

"What do you want from me, Gendry?" Arya cries. "I couldn't! It was too dangerous, and I couldn't even write my family. Not with email, not with letters, nothing! We risked that a couple of times, when it was absolutely necessary – and now… just… I couldn't contact anyone back here, because Cersei would have found out where I was."

"And where were you?" he demands.

"I can't tell you, either, Gendry, because what if it gets back-"

"Do you seriously think I'd tell them? Seriously? Who the fuck do you think I am?"

"I think you're an idiot," Arya snaps, "but you're the only idiot I've got left, so…"

"Yeah, well, I can't just let you in here, okay? I've got… I've got a girlfriend, and you know how that would look, if I just let you in here? She'll know. She'll figure out who you are, and then…"

"I'm not asking for you to sleep with me, you idiot, I'm asking for you to let me sleep on your couch, or your floor, or fucking anything so I don't end up spending the night in a dumpster," Arya says desperately. "Just please, Gods, Gendry, just please let me in. Just for one night. I have nowhere else to go, and I know I'm a terrible person, and I'm not asking for forgiveness or for anything, I just… I just need a place to stay."

He studies her intently, blue eyes flickering over her face, over the blood spatters on her skin and her lilac bridesmaid's dress. His eyes wander to her feet, which are bare and bleeding from all the running, and he sighs. He really can't turn her away like this. But then his mind catches on something she said earlier. "Arya, before I let you in, I… what did you mean when you said, 'you're the only idiot I've got left?'"

"It's not important," she mutters, shaking her head. "Just please, Gendry."

"No, it's important to me. What did you mean?"

She looks up at him with shiny grey eyes, and he realizes she's fighting back tears.

"Arya," he says slowly, "what happened?"

"It's not important," she repeats, but her voice is breaking.

"You're covered in blood, you're barefoot, and you look like you just ran three miles," Gendry says. "I'd say it's pretty damn important."

"Gendry…"

"What happened?"

"My entire family is dead, okay?" Arya blurts angrily, her voice shaky even as she raises it. "My brother and his new wife were shot, and my mom, and my brother, and Gods only know where Rickon got off to, and I didn't even see Sansa, and just… everyone's gone, okay? Are you fucking happy now?"

Gendry stares back at her as she swallows back what he can only assume was going to be a sob. "Seven hells, Arya," he murmurs. "And you didn't call the police?"

"The Lannisters own the police," she points out.

"Couldn't you… doesn't your family have a security team? You…"

"The Lannisters own my family's security team," she amends. "The Lannisters own everything."

Gendry notices then that she's still shaking, and he understands that it is in no way because she just ran several miles in the cold in a skimpy dress. Though she'll never admit it, she's terrified, probably traumatized, and she really does have no place else to go. "All right," he says, "just… just come inside, okay? You can have the bed."

"No way. Not again. I am not sleeping on your bed _again_. You can try chivalry all you want, but there is no way in Westeros I am taking your bed from you again."

Exasperated, he nods in agreement and steps away from the door. She steps gingerly past him and makes her way over to his couch, which is just as covered in t-shirts and jewel cases as it was the last time she was here. "Some things never change," Gendry hears her remark as she sits down on the end of the couch.

"Do you want to, maybe… wash the blood off your face? And change? You look like a wreck, and there's no way that dress is comfortable…" Gendry suggests. Arya gives him a weather eye, sighs, and moves off the couch and into the bathroom.

"Toss me a t-shirt and some sweatpants, will you?" she calls, and Gendry heads into the bedroom, resolutely refusing to imagine her sliding out of that slinky lilac dress, or to picture what she might be wearing – or not wearing – underneath it. He grabs the nearest t-shirt he can find, pulls a pair of sweatpants from the drawer, and heads back toward the bathroom. The door is closed, so he knocks politely. The door opens a few inches, and he presses the clothes into Arya's waiting hand.

She opens the door about thirty seconds later, but she doesn't come out. He inches around the corner to see her standing there, dabbing at her bloodied face with a damp black washcloth. "Let me help," he offers, and reaches for the washcloth, but she flinches away, and he backs off. "Sorry," he says. "I'll set up the couch, then."

"Yeah," she says, and as he backs away, he hears her add a timid, "sorry."

An hour later, Gendry lies awake in bed, wondering just what the hell happened that could have killed Arya's entire family. He knows it must be the Lannisters, but he can't understand why they would do such a thing now – or why they would even do it at all. He can't sleep, thinking of what Arya must have seen today.

He wonders how she can possibly be asleep after witnessing the murder of her whole family, but then he hears a muffled noise coming from his living room. As quietly as he can, Gendry rolls out of bed and tiptoes out to investigate. Arya is where he left her on the couch, shaking and crying, and for a moment he thinks she's awake, but as he inches closer he realizes she's asleep, reliving whatever she saw earlier today. "Oh, Arya," he murmurs, and tenderly draws a hand through her hair. She whimpers in her sleep and continues to cry.

Arya Stark doesn't cry. Gendry knows this. She didn't cry when her father died, and he's sure she's never cried about it since, at least not while awake. Yet here she lies, on his couch, with tears streaming down her face and her entire body shaking uncontrollably. He strokes her hair once again, moving his hand to her shoulder to shake her awake, as gently as he can.

She jolts upright, grey eyes wide and rimmed with red, and stares at him, clearly confused as to where she is for a moment before her eyes adjust and she recognizes him. "Gendry?" she squeaks, and he says nothing, just pulls her into a hug. Her hands shake as she hugs him back, her fingers digging into his back as she holds to him as if, should she let go, she'll be ripped away by some unseen undercurrent. Gendry cradles her head against his chest, knowing that she'll hate that she looked so weak later.

He doesn't think of her as weak, though. He doesn't think of any release of emotion as weak. He thinks she's beautiful and strong as she shakes and cries into his shoulder, just as beautiful and strong as when she is fierce and argumentative.

Arya pulls back ever so slightly, and Gendry releases her. Immediately, she pulls him back, and again Gendry thinks that she's afraid she'll drift away. "Please don't leave," she whispers brokenly into his neck, and he gently pries her fingers away from him.

"I won't," he says quietly. "I'll stay."

She looks up at him and then chuckles once, sadly, to herself, so suddenly that at first he thinks she's simply hiccoughed. "I'm so stupid," she whispers.

"You're not stupid," Gendry sighs, and sits down next to her, keeping one arm around her shoulder. She unabashedly snuggles in next to him, and he reminds himself pointedly that this – whatever this is now – can only be platonic.

"I am, though. How could I think that I could come home and things wouldn't get fucked up? Everything – everyone – I touch goes to shit. Everybody dies – not even dies, but is murdered. Everybody I get involved with. Like you, you'll probably die, and then…"

"I'm not going to die, Arya," Gendry says, and runs a thumb through her hair, stroking it back and away from her face.

"You could, I mean, what if the Lannisters know and then-"

"I'm not going to die," he repeats.

"Don't be stupid, you could easily-"

"Arya," he cuts her off, and she looks up at him sharply, knocking her head into his jaw harshly. "Calm down and go to sleep." Her lower lip quivers, and she shakes her head, but then he continues to run his hand through her hair until her whole body relaxes, and soon she's unconscious but dry-eyed, curled against him with one hand wrapped around his bicep. He tries to extricate himself from her grip, but she murmurs in her sleep and he realizes he really only has two choices: stay on the couch with her or take her back to his bed.

The couch is uncomfortable and not really big enough for two people to sleep on, and though he feels guilty for even taking her in, Arya's in no position to be left alone right now. He scoops her up, as he did the last time she spent the night two years ago, and carries her back into his room, laying her daintily on the bed before climbing in next to her and hoping to all seven Gods that whatever position they wake up in in the morning isn't compromising.

Arya whimpers once again in her sleep, and Gendry wonders if the nightmares are already returning. She continues to emit a high-pitched whine until he reaches across and rubs the back of his finger along her arm.

She quiets, rolls toward him, and lays a hand across his chest. Gendry sucks in a sharp breath as a fresh wave of guilt washes over him, but as Arya tightens her fingers around the wad of t-shirt in his hand, he relaxes.

He could probably be anyone, and she'd still be craving physical contact. He's saving her from her own mind right now, and once Gendry tells himself that that's all it is, he's perfectly comfortable. He breathes in once, realizes his breathing has come to match Arya's, and closes his eyes to drift off to sleep as well.


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note: Well, this took ages, but now that NaNoWriMo is done (and turns out I only have one real final to study for, the rest are essays) I should be back to a fairly regular schedule! Hope you all enjoy this, and I am forever grateful for the reviews, favorites, and follows!**

Gendry knows he's in deep shit the moment he wakes up. For one, Arya's head is buried in his neck and his arm is curled around the small of her back. And for another, he's certain that what woke him up was the distinct sound of someone clearing their throat. He opens his eyes, blearily, and swallows back a groan as he sees Willow leaning against the door jamb, arms crossed, an expectant expression on her face.

"Nice," she says coolly, and Gendry closes his eyes, heaves a sigh, and gently slides away from Arya, who remains unconscious but mutters something unintelligible in her sleep as she curves her arm over the pillow where Gendry's body just lay.

"It is not in any way what it looks like," Gendry tries, but Willow holds up one hand, massaging the space between her eyes with the other.

"Don't," she warns. "Just… don't."

"I have to, Will, I can't just let you think that-"

"This is Arya, right?" Willow asks, nudging her head toward the sleeping figure on the bed. Gendry nods and beckons for her to follow him out of the bedroom; the last thing he wants is to wake Arya with an altercation between him and his girlfriend.

"I never told you about Arya, did I?" Gendry asks, and Willow smiles hollowly.

"You did once, when you were drunk," she says, and Gendry suppresses yet another groan. He could have said anything when he was drunk, and generally he's been very careful not to drink around Will, but he can remember one occasion with Hot Pie… Or, more to the point, he _can't _remember one occasion with Hot Pie – he has no idea what he may or may not have said to Willow in his drunken stupor.

"What exactly did I say then?"

"Not much," Willow replies nonchalantly. "You cried."

Gendry feels color creeping up his cheeks, but doesn't deny it. He can't remember, so Will must be right. He gazes down at her, willing her to keep going.

"There was a lot of 'I miss you' and 'why,' and, a couple times, you kissed me and then stroked my hair and said 'I like you, but you're not the same,'" Willow continues. Gendry closes his eyes and turns his head to the side.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I know that doesn't mean anything, but…"

"I'd say that I forgive you, Gendry, but what in seven hells are you doing with her, and what is she doing here now? It's been, what, two years since she left, since I know she must have happened a while before I came into the picture. And then she just turns up now?" Willow glares up at him skeptically, but he refuses to meet her eyes. He can feel the rage radiating off her, though it's nothing in comparison with the anger he's picked up off of Arya in the past. Willow, in every way, is a much more subdued version of Arya.

"She showed up last night, out of the blue, with nowhere to go," he starts, "and I didn't want to let her in, but after she told me what happened, I… Will, I couldn't turn her away."

"How old is she?" Willow asks, peering down at Arya's youthful, slumbering face, and Gendry sighs again, even now feeling guilty about the age difference.

"Eighteen."

"Hells, Gendry, so you two were together when she was sixteen?" Willow spits incredulously. "What is wrong with you?"

"We were never… together," he says slowly. "It's not… we were friends. There was one time, and a dance, right before she left, but we were never in a relationship. We just…" He doesn't know why he can't finish his sentences. Finally he looks back at Willow, as if she might have some explanation, but she only stares back up at him with fury in her brown eyes.

"Still, Gendry, she's six years younger than you!"

"Don't act as if the age difference is what this is about," Gendry says. "That's not what's important here."

"Yeah, I know – what's important is that there is another girl in my boyfriend's bed."

"She had nowhere else to go."

"Oh, and I guess the couch just wasn't good enough for her?" Willow snarls.

"She wanted the couch," Gendry argues. "Honestly. All she wanted was the couch. She actually threatened me if I forced her to take the bed, so I set the couch up – look." He points to the couch, which has a ratty blanket and a tearstained pillow still strewn across its cushions. Willow eyes him warily. "She was a bit of a wreck, though, crying in her sleep and all, and I went out to check on her, and I couldn't just leave her alone."

"You could never just leave her alone," Willow mutters, gaze flicking back and forth from Gendry to the half-made couch bed. "What happened to her to put her in such a bad place?"

"I can't tell you that," Gendry says firmly.

Willow stares up at him, hands on her hips, brown hair slung straight and shiny over her shoulder. "I'd say that I can't believe you, but honestly, I knew this was coming," she says sadly after a long, tense silence. Gendry's eyebrows rocket skyward, and Willow shakes her head. "Do you know you talk in your sleep?" she asks, and all the color drains from Gendry's face. "I'm guessing that's a no," Willow says with a small, sad smile. "You don't really form coherent sentences. Just words and phrases. Names. But not once, not _once _was it ever my name. It was Arya. It was _always_ Arya."

Gendry runs his hand through his hair, unable to look at Willow as tears well in her eyes. "Why did you stay, then?" he asks.

"Because I love you," Willow says, "even though I don't think you've ever loved me."

"That's not true-"

"Don't," she cuts him off softly. "I get it. We can't control who we love, whether they're six years younger than us or whether we're dating them or whether they're a purple platypus. So you don't have to lie to me and tell me that you loved me at any point in time, because I know, okay? You told me you loved me, but you never felt it. We both know that."

Gendry doesn't try to argue again, and stays silent as Willow places a hand on his cheek and leans up on tiptoe to kiss him lightly and fondly on the lips. Then she backs away, grabs her purse from the kitchen table, and heads for the door. He follows her and then asks, "So is this it, then?"

"I don't know, Gendry," she says, "you tell me. I know you didn't do anything with her last night – you wouldn't be nearly so blasé about this if you had – but that doesn't change the fact that it's her that you love and not me."

"I don't want…" Gendry doesn't know what he wants. If he's being honest with himself, he wants Arya. He wants to hold her and help her and keep her safe, not that she really needs his protection, especially given that she apparently evaded a small platoon of Lannister men while the rest of her family was murdered before her eyes. But at the same time, he doesn't want to lose Willow; whether he loves her or not, she's been a good friend and a pleasant companion in Arya's absence. "I don't want to lose you," he finishes, and Willow shakes her head sadly.

"You won't lose me," she assures him. "But right now… right now you need to figure your own shit out, and I… I can't be here when she wakes up. I can't be here with you right now. I'm sorry." She backs away and strides toward the door, and Gendry swears he can hear her choking back strangled sobs.

"Willow," he tries gently, but she only picks up speed. "Where will you go?" he asks.

"I'll… I'll go talk to Jojen," she says, her voice wavering on the cusp of broken crying. "He's good at this kind of thing." Gendry is about to tell her that's a good idea, but she's already gone out the door, leaving him to stand in his pajamas in his kitchen and wonder just what in seven hells he did to bring this big a shitstorm down on himself.

He pads back into the bedroom and finds Arya awake, curled against the headboard with her knees pulled to her chest. "I've fucked something up, haven't I?" she asks, and even as Gendry starts to shake his head to say it's his own damn fault, she smiles. "As usual. Brilliant. I actually break everything I touch."

"That's not true, Arya, this was all on me," Gendry says, but Arya is having none of it.

"Sure," she says, and stretches, cat-like, before rolling sideways to the edge of the bed.

Gendry watches her as she walks on long, muscular legs toward the kitchen, and tentatively trails after her. He knows he needs to talk to her about where they stand, but he feels awkward bringing up their romantic whatever-they-have when her family's just been obliterated. He doesn't think his feelings should really take priority here. Then again, his emotions aren't the only ones on the line here; Willow is just as affected by all this as he is. He leans against the doorframe and watches her as she rummages through his fridge and pulls out a carton of milk and a Styrofoam box of leftover pizza. "Arya," he starts quietly, and she looks up at him sharply, grey eyes shining. "We need to…"

"To talk. Yeah. I know that," she says, and takes her food to the table, on which she sits cross-legged. She pushes a loose strand of hair out of her face and gazes up at him expectantly. When he only looks uncomfortably back down at her, she smiles sympathetically. "I figure you're in deeper shit than me for this, so… you put your shit on the table first, okay?"

"That makes sense," Gendry says, and tries to think of where to begin. He could tell Arya everything: he could say he was drawn to Willow because she reminded him so much of Arya, but that as he's gotten to know her he's realized that the two are far less alike than he'd initially assumed, that he'd never been in love with her but that she'd been a nice reprieve from the aching loneliness… but he doesn't say any of that. It feels ridiculous even as he thinks it, even though it is true. What he does say is: "I'm in a committed relationship."

"You told me that last night," Arya points out.

"Yeah, but, I mean…. I've been dating her almost two years. I can't just leave her at the drop of a hat."

"I'm not asking you to do that. I'm not asking you to leave her at all," Arya says simply.

Gendry is somewhat taken aback. "You're… what?"

"Look, I didn't come back here to mess up your life. I wasn't planning on seeing you while I was here," she says.

"Really," Gendry says, somewhat angrily. "So you're just going to ignore that we have something?"

"Look, Gendry, we…" She wants to say that they don't have anything, but she can't lie to him. "We aren't ever going to work, you know? I ruin things – I mean, look what happened to my family. The last thing I want is to ruin you, too."

"You won't ruin me," Gendry argues fiercely. "Arya, I-"

"Don't say it," she cuts him off sharply. "Don't you _dare _tell me that you love me." She pauses, takes a deep, shaky breath, and then looks him right in the eyes. "I need you to forget me," she says, pain evident in her voice, and Gendry looks back down at her incredulously.

"Do you seriously think that I could?" he asks after a long silence.

"I'm not asking, Gendry. I need you to move on," she tells him. "Please."

He leans over her, one hand on either side of her where she sits on the table. "Arya Stark," he growls, "do you honestly think that after _two years _of missing you, loving you – yes, I said it, I don't care if you can't hear that right now – that I'm willing and able to just put you behind me?"

His eyes burn into hers, and she holds his gaze for a long, very tense moment before she whispers, "No."

"Good," he says, and steps back. "Now, your turn. What does this mean for you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I've got Willow to think of. What about you?"

Arya blinks, thinks of Aegon and his blue waves of hair, those blue-purple eyes. "I don't have anyone," she says.

"I don't believe that," Gendry says immediately.

"Why not?" Arya demands.

"A, there's a hickey on your collarbone," Gendry points out, and Arya tugs the t-shirt up a little higher; she hadn't even noticed that Aegon had left her that particular souvenir. She wonders if Sansa or anyone else had noticed it at the wedding – how could she have missed it? "B," Gendry continues, "have you seen yourself recently?"

"Yes. I look like I got into a massive fight and was then promptly hit by a train," Arya replies stiffly.

"Sure," Gendry admits, "but barring that… Arya, you're gorgeous, and I refuse to believe that I'm the only one who's noticed that."

Her cheeks blush scarlet, and she opens her mouth, fully intending to snap something witty at him, but what comes out is a mumbled "stupid."

"I am not," Gendry insists. "Now, tell me: what have you got going on?"

"I've slept with this guy a couple times," she says, after a brief period in which she quickly regains her composure. Gendry looks expectantly down at her, and she groans. "Okay, many times. On a regular basis. But I don't… I never liked him. Loved him. Anything. He was just kind of there, and he was attractive, and he was interested, so I took the opportunity."

Gendry nods, taking all that in, and then asks, "So where does that leave us?"

"You tell me. Like I said, you're in deeper shit than I am. I can call it off with Griff whenever I want," Arya says, careful to use Aegon's false name, even though she's still not sure exactly what it is that he's hiding. "But you can't, really. And I don't think you will. Which is why I was saying, forget me. Stay with her. I'll be gone again soon anyway, if I can help it."

"You're going back?"

"I have nowhere else to go," Arya says. _You could stay here, _Gendry wants to say, but instead he nods and folds his arms.

"So we're…"

"Friends," Arya says decisively. "We can do that, right?"

Hesitantly, Gendry agrees. "Sure."

"Great!" Arya says ecstatically, and jumps off the table. "So can I borrow your car?"

"How do you know I even _have _a car?" Gendry sputters.

"You leave your keys on your coat hook," she says hurriedly, "but that's not important. Can I borrow it?"

"Can you even drive?"

"I have a license. Not a Westerosi license, but a license nonetheless," Arya says.

Gendry shakes his head. "Unbelievable. But no, you cannot borrow my car."

"I _will _just take it, you know," she says, and heads toward the coat hook in question. Gendry darts in front of her and blocks her path, hulking in the doorway to keep her from passing.

"What do you need it for?" he demands.

"I need to pay a visit to the only person left here whom I know is alive – and whom I think can help me deal with the Lannisters. And I don't want to risk walking in broad daylight when the Lannisters and their men are probably still wandering the streets looking for me," Arya explains. "So I can have the car, right?"

"Like hells you can. I am not about to give my car away to you – knowing you, you'd disappear and then I'd never get it back," Gendry says. "I'll drive you wherever you need to go."

"I'm not taking any more of your time. I swear I'll return it-" She tries to duck under his arm, but he blocks her. Frustrated, she steps back and glares up at him, hands on her hips.

"And what if you're killed, or kidnapped? Not only will I not get the car, I won't get you," Gendry says. "I'm coming with you, and I'm not leaving you till all this is over."

"It's never going to be over," Arya says seriously.

Gendry holds her gaze for a long moment and then says, "And I'm fine with that."

"So that's it, then," she breathes. "You're serious."

Gendry nods, resisting the urge to blurt any number of the cheesy thoughts that have popped into his head: I can't imagine life without you, it was hard enough the first time, I'm not doing it again. To hell with Willow, I want you, forever, and I never want to lose you again. All he says is, "I'll drive you there. Where are you going?"

"I'll direct you," Arya says, looking at him strangely, and Gendry wonders what she thinks he's thinking, or if that's what she's thinking of at all. Now more than ever, she is an absolute enigma to him.

They don't speak on the subject again as they drive. Arya gives him directions – turn left here, turn right up ahead, down that tiny alleyway, good, now up this insanely long driveway – but other than that, they are mostly silent. Gendry puts on the radio, but instead of music, a news announcement comes up, proclaiming the deaths of Catelyn and Robb Stark and thus placing the fate of the Stark money in the hands of estranged stepson Jon, or else missing eldest sister Sansa. Gendry fumbles to turn the radio off, but Arya reaches forward and switches it back on. The announcement continues, including an audio clip of Cersei Lannister professing her regrets for what happened and offering to absorb Stark Corporations into Baratheon Corporations in order to avoid the mess of locating and training a new executive. The announcer then states that the police are out looking for missing children Sansa, Brandon, Arya, and Rickon, and that all efforts are being made to find them and bring them home safely.

Arya grimaces and flicks the radio back off. "They've got the whole police force out," she says.

"How do you know?"

"Because the Lannisters own the police force."

"Why do you always say Lannisters?" Gendry asks. "Cersei's technically a Baratheon, since she married him. And so are her children. The only Lannister left is Jaime, and the younger brother… Tyrion, I think? I saw him on the news once."

"Tyrion's not important. He hasn't been involved in Lannister business for years; I think he's off in Essos doing diplomacy stuff," Arya lies. She knows exactly where Tyrion is: in Braavos, providing Aegon with private tutoring sessions – on what, Arya doesn't know, but the two meet in private at least twice a week. "And let's just say most of those Baratheons aren't really Baratheons…"

"Where are we going?" Gendry asks again, as he continues up the long, serpentine driveway that leads up into the hills.

"To a real, bona fide Baratheon," Arya says simply, and at last a massive, very modern-looking house comes into view up ahead. Gendry pushes his little old car forward, and then pulls to a grinding stop just outside the house, behind a flashy red sportscar. "Hopefully he'll recognize me," Arya mutters as she clambers out of the car and heads for the door.

There is no knocker, only a silver box built into the plain white wall, with a black button on it. Arya presses it, and after a few seconds, it connects with someone on the other hand. "Hello?" a male voice says, crackling through the tiny speaker in the wall.

"Renly Baratheon?" Arya asks.

"Yes?" the man's voice responds warily.

"Could you let me in?" she asks.

"Who is this? I'm kind of in the middle of something," Renly asks, somewhat irritably. Gendry swears he hears someone else chuckle in the background, but it could easily have been static.

Arya swallows nervously; what she's about to do is seriously risky. "This is Arya Stark," she says. "Please… Renly…"

"Seven hells," Renly mutters. "I'll be right down." A muffled curse makes its way through the speaker, and then Arya releases the button and backs away, closer to Gendry.

A few minutes later, the door opens to reveal a tall, well-built man in a red silk bathrobe, embroidered in the far eastern Essosi fashion. Gendry's jaw actually drops – it's as if he's looking at his future self. The man has the same dark hair, the same blue eyes, even the same jawline as Gendry, and as Gendry takes a step forward, he becomes fairly certain that they're the same height as well. Gendry is a bit more muscular, but he chalks that up to his work in the forge at the costume armorer's.

He and Renly Baratheon might as well be twins.

Another man with a mop of perfect wavy brown hair pops his head up on Renly's shoulder, and Arya rolls her eyes. "Seriously?" she says to Renly, and he sheepishly nudges the door a little further open.

"Isn't that…" Gendry starts, recognizing Renly's companion from his time on television, but Renly cuts him off.

"Loras Tyrell does not concern you," he says, looking at Gendry for the first time. His blue eyes go wide, and he glances desperately at Arya.

She stares back at him, utterly confused, and then Loras, too, eyes Gendry up and down. "Did you have yourself cloned without telling me?" he asks Renly, and tries to push past him. "Because let me tell you, the things I could do with that…"

"Get. In. The house," Renly commands, and ushers Arya and Gendry in past him. He leads them through a minimalist white hallway into a living room trimmed in gold and red. A shiny black grand piano sits, clearly unused, in the corner. Loras crosses the room to perch atop it, and Renly settles down in a red velvet armchair beside it.

Arya and Gendry remain standing, silently watching their hosts, until finally Arya broaches the silence. "So you've probably heard…"

"I'm so sorry, Arya," Renly says. "I'm so very, very sorry. If I could do anything for you, I would, but I…"

"Cersei poisoned your brother," Arya informs him sharply. "She's behind the deaths of my parents and my brother, and I'm sure she's got my siblings captive as well."

"Okay," Renly says, taking all that in stride. Loras's brown eyes are bugged out, as all this information is clearly brand new to him. "But why?"

"She wants control of the company, I'm assuming," Arya shrugs.

"Okay," Renly says again. "Second question: who is your friend?"

Arya looks from Renly to Gendry and back again, and peeps, "Oh. _Oh._"

"Oh?" Loras echoes.

"This is Gendry," Arya says.

"How old are you, boy?" Renly asks.

"Twenty-four," Gendry answers.

Renly closes his eyes and sighs heavily. "This is going to sound like a weird question, Gendry, but who are your parents?"

"My mom's name was Myranda Waters. Never knew my father."

Renly's eyes snap open and he looks sharply at Arya. "Arya Stark, do you realize what this means?"

Arya shakes her head and then, as she looks at Gendry and Renly's mirrored faces again, begins to nod. "Robert," she gasps. "Robert's his father."

"What?" Gendry yelps, and Loras hops off the piano.

"And he's older than Joffrey by about four years, and if the company passes down by blood…" Renly starts.

"Joffrey isn't Robert's son!" Arya exclaims. "He's Jaime's."

Loras looks like he might vomit. Renly's face pales, and he looks at Gendry once again. "Tommen and Myrcella?" he asks, and Arya nods anxiously. "So then, your friend here… Gendry… is the only real heir to the Baratheon Corporation."


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note: There is actually no excuse for the lateness of this update. No excuse whatsoever. Not even writer's block. This chapter has literally been sitting in my computer for almost a month and I just haven't uploaded it. I'm so sorry. As always, thank you for the favorites, reviews, and follows!**

****Chapter 13

"I'm the _what_?" Gendry sputters, losing his balance and then steadying himself against the wall.

"You're it. You're the rightful heir to all the Baratheon money, and the company itself," Arya says. "Holy shit."

"Oh, hell no," Gendry says, shaking his head vehemently. "No way. No."

"Gendry," Arya says, and grabs him by the arm, "you have to take the company."

He shakes her off him. "Like hell I have to take the company! Why can't _you _take the company?" This question is directed at Renly, who rolls his eyes and gestures to the lavish splendor around him.

"Please. Do you seriously think I don't have my own stuff to do? I don't need or want to deal with that company and all its problems right now," he scoffs.

"You're really focusing on Baratheon Corp's selling points, aren't you," Arya drawls, fixing him with a stony grey glare before turning back to Gendry. "You are the answer to all my family's issues! Well, I mean, other than the everybody's dead thing, but… you should be in control of the company! Or, at least… Renly, what did Robert's will say?"

Renly shrugs and brushes one hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, Arya, I don't really remember… I always just assumed it was supposed to go to Joffrey. Something about the firstborn son of the owner of the corporation."

"Which is _you_," Arya says pointedly, and prods Gendry in the chest. "You have to claim the company! If your appearance isn't enough to give you claim, you can get a paternity test-"

"Arya!" Gendry cuts her off. "I don't want the damn company!"

"I don't think you really have a choice-"

"I can't run a multibillion-dollar corporation! I don't know the first thing about business, I have no idea how to dig the company out of the financial shithole that the radio tells me it's in, I don't have a clue how to interact with other wealthy people, like the Lannisters and the Tyrells…" Loras looks up at him sharply, but Gendry ignores him. "I'm not cut out for this, and I'm not going to do it! Find someone else!"

"There _is _no one else!" Arya groans. "You're _it, _don't you get it? I mean, I'd do it if I could, but I'm not Robert's firstborn son."

"I'm not his legitimate son," Gendry counters.

"Oi," says Renly. "Lovers' spat."

"We're not lovers!" Arya and Gendry snap in unison.

"Whatever you say," Renly says, and holds up his hands apologetically. "I've got a copy of Robert's will around here somewhere. I can look this all up for you if you really need it."

"Why didn't you say so earlier?" Arya laments.

"He was enjoying watching you fight," Loras answers with a grin, and squeezes Renly's arm.

"I'll be back shortly," Renly says, also grinning wildly. "Try not to claw at my wallpaper while I'm out, all right?" He winks at Arya, who glares at him and, if only to anger him, runs one hand down the wall, fingers tensed.

Loras continues to lounge on the piano, studying Gendry and Arya with hooded eyes for a long moment before smirking knowingly over at them. Arya narrows her grey eyes. "What?" she growls, and he laughs prettily.

"Oh, you two," he says.

"What about us?" Arya asks.

"Drop it, Arya," Gendry sighs. Loras rolls onto his side, propping his head up on one hand and beaming back at them.

"No, I want to know. What about us?" she demands, and Loras shrugs. "You know, I could just tell the press that you and Renly are…"

"You could, but you won't, because we're hiding you right now," Loras cuts her off, the smile immediately gone from his face. The shine has disappeared from his big brown eyes, even as he notices Gendry place one steadying hand on Arya's arm to keep her from shaking with rage.

The three remain in tense silence until Renly returns a few minutes later, a crisp, clean paper in hand. "Well, this is uncomfortable," he observes, and sits back down next to the piano. "It's like I've entered a war zone. Honestly, can't I leave you children alone for two minutes?"

"I'm not a child!" Arya laments.

"Let it go," Gendry murmurs, and she bites down hard on the inside of her lip.

"Did Loras disturb you with his flowery notions of romance?" Renly asks, glancing pointedly at Arya over the edge of the paper. She nods, and starts to complain, but Renly just nods knowingly and skims the paper. "Ah," he says, "here we go: Baratheon Corporations goes to the eldest remaining son of the owner of the company." Arya narrows her eyes, offended at the inherent sexism of the will, but brightens momentarily as Renly continues: "It's been amended, though, to say 'owners' of the company."

"Joint ownership," Arya breathes, biting back her fury at still being excluded from the possibility of ownership. It's not that she wants control of the company; far from it. She thinks Sansa would be a reasonable executive, though, and the fact that she, Sansa, and, though she's technically illegitimate, Myrcella are excluded from the running infuriates her to no end. "My father… also owned the company? That was the deal they made when I was sixteen? That was why Robert was always hanging around our house?"

"Ordering pizza way out of the delivery zone…" mutters Gendry, and Arya slams her elbow into his ribs. He responds with a light kick to her shins.

"Children, please," Renly says with a laugh, and lays the will down on his lap. "I'm assuming you understand what this means. Joffrey can't inherit the company, since Robert is not his father – a simple paternity test will prove that. That leaves you, Gendry, and Robb."

"Robb's gone," Arya says. "But there is Jon."

"He's not fully part of your family," Loras points out.

"He's my father's son," Arya argues.

"He's got his own stuff to manage," Renly says, and Arya frowns, remembering Jon's failure to appear at Robb's wedding. She understands that that was for the best now, of course, though still she wishes, somewhat selfishly, that she got to see her favorite brother when she came back from Braavos for the first time in two years. "You know he's a big-shot military strategy professor up at the Wall, right?" Arya shakes her head; she hadn't known. "He's got stuff to do. He can't be bothered with this."

"So then… Bran," Gendry says, and Arya winces. The chance of Bran, in a wheelchair, having escaped the massacre at Robb's wedding, is so slim that she refuses to even consider it. "It's me or Bran. Or, failing Bran, Rickon." Again, Arya steels herself to keep from shuddering. She doesn't even want to think about what could have happened to little Rickon.

On the other hand, her two younger brothers and her sister were reported missing, not dead. She supposes she should be glad, even optimistic, because of that. "I could try calling him?" Arya suggests, but Renly shakes his head.

"If Brandon got out, he won't be picking up his phone. He'll probably have discarded it, in case the Lannisters are tracking it," he says. Arya glances nervously down at her thigh, where her own phone would be if she'd had it with her at the wedding. For the first time, she is grateful for having been forced into that god-awful bridesmaid's dress; she would never even have thought of the Lannisters tracking her phone. She could have been caught and killed ten times over by now if she'd had any space on her in which to keep a phone.

"So then, how do we contact him?" Arya starts to ask, refusing to add the acknowledging addendum 'if he's even alive.'

Loras and Renly both shrug, and Gendry sighs heavily and leans against the wall. Arya turns to look at him, hoping he might have some answers, or at the very least an idea – she likes to think of him as a pretty resourceful guy – but he seems as lost as she is. She is about to ask if he has any ideas, just in case she's misreading his face, when his phone vibrates against his thigh. Gendry jumps a little bit, and Arya wonders if he, too, is wondering if the Lannisters somehow know of his existence and that he would willingly hide Arya.

As he draws the phone out, however, he grimaces in a much more familiar way, and it's clear that he recognizes the number. He flicks the phone open and presses it to his ear. "Will?" he asks, and Arya stiffens. She knows who Willow is. She heard almost all of her conversation with Gendry earlier that morning. "Oh," says Gendry, and then, more surprised, "_oh!_ Oh, my gods, okay, Arya, take the phone." He presses it into her hands and she stares at it like it's a live snake. "It's not her," he mouths at her, and she gingerly holds the phone to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Arya?" the voice on the other end asks, and it is most definitely not Willow.

"Yes?"

"It's Bran," the voice says, and Arya breathes a sigh of relief before beating herself up a little for not having recognized Bran's voice. "I thought you might be with Gendry, but I didn't have his number and…"

"What are you doing with Willow?" Arya asks.

"I went straight to Jojen's once I got out," Bran explains, and though Arya wonders how exactly he managed that, she doesn't ask right now. She has to keep her priorities straight. "Willow showed up here a few minutes ago because she needed to talk to Jojen about relationship issues and… Oh. You probably don't want to hear that."

"It's fine," Arya says. "Do you know what happened to Rickon or Sansa?"

"No clue," Bran sighs. "Well, I know Rickon escaped, I saw him sneaking out the back with his dog, but I honestly couldn't say about Sansa. Radio didn't say she was dead, so I guess that's a plus."

"You guess," Arya snorts, even though she was thinking along almost exactly the same lines only a moment earlier. The knowledge that Bran is alive has reassured her, though, and she has a strong sense that Sansa and Rickon, though they might be in trouble, are still alive. "Listen, Bran, this is a weird question and probably dangerous to ask over the phone, but have you got any interest in running Baratheon Corp?"

There is a pause, and then Bran hisses, "What?"

"Some complicated stuff with Robert's will, but, basically, either you or Gendry has to take the company," Arya explains.

"Gendry?" Bran asks.

"Yeah, you know how he never knew his father?"

"No, but-"

"It's Robert," Arya says, and she hears Bran breathe out a small "oh" as he understands. "So how about it? Gendry sure as hell doesn't want to do it, and when it comes to business knowledge you are probably our best option."

"You do remember I'm sixteen years old, right?" Bran asks, and Arya shrugs before remembering he can't see that.

"And very capable," she tells him.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Bran snorts. "I'll think about it."

"If you don't take it, it'll go to Cersei, and then through to Joffrey," Arya warns.

"I'll think about it," Bran repeats. "I'm just glad you're also okay. I'll call again later. Or you can call Willow, or Jojen or Meera, I guess, if you have their numbers."

"I don't."

"Willow, then," Bran asserts. "I'll let you know as soon as I have any idea what to do, or if I hear anything about Rickon or Sansa."

"Same goes to you," Arya says. "Goodbye, Bran." And with that, she hangs up.

It's another tense couple of hours at Renly's house with Gendry, Renly, and Loras while Arya waits for Bran to call back. The four of them try to relax, pop some popcorn, settle in and pass the time watching a movie, but Arya can't sit still and Gendry can't pay attention to the movie and Renly and Loras are making bedroom eyes at each other and not a one of them can stand it any longer. Arya decides to go for a walk, but Renly shakes his head and reminds her that she's a wanted fugitive. Dejected, fidgety, and grumpy, she sits back down.

They try to play cards next, and Gendry schools them all at poker. They all laugh a little as he takes all of Renly's hard-earned chips time and time again, but no one's heart is in it. Before long, they're caught in a bored-to-tears game of Go Fish. Arya, exasperated but trained into patience from her years at Braavos Academy, resists the urge to toss all the cards in the air and snap "Fifty-two pick up, I hope you're all fucking happy." Instead she sits and glares at the cards in her hand and, every so often, glances furtively at Gendry's hip, where his phone sits, irritatingly silent, in his pocket.

"That is it," Arya says after three hours of absolute boredom. "If he hasn't decided by now, he's never deciding."

"You don't want to rush him," Loras points out. "He might end up deciding not to take the company."

"I know where he is," Arya snaps, "so if he says no I can drive my ass over there and _make _him take the company. He's going to say yes one way or another. I'm calling him. Gendry, give me the phone." Gendry stares at her, doing his best not to make his gaze fond – Gods, how he's missed Arya's signature anger – and then, utterly silent, tosses the phone over to her. She scrolls through the contacts, selects Willow Heddle, and presses call.

Only after the other end picks up does she realize what a rash idea this was.

Because it isn't Bran's phone, and it's not Bran who picks up the phone.

"Gendry?" a girl's voice says, breathily, and Arya steels herself to keep from slamming the phone closed.

She's an adult. She can handle this conversation. "No," she says quietly.

Willow falters and then says, "Oh. Arya."

"Yeah," says Arya. "May I speak to Bran?"

Again, Willow pauses, and Arya swears she hears her snicker just before she says, "He's a bit tied up right now."

"Tied up," Arya echoes skeptically.

"Yes, he's, uh… it's not important. I'm sure he'll tell you if he thinks it's important," Willow says, and just like that her voice is cold again. "What did you need?"

"I wanted to know if he made his decision," Arya says, and glances over at Gendry, who is staring at her like she's making a deal with the devil over the phone, rather than conversing with his girlfriend.

"I'll ask him, but there's no guarantee that he'll answer," Willow says, and Arya can practically hear her struggling to keep her voice level. She knows if she were Willow, she'd be flying off the handle, but she feels it's probably bad form to commend the girl on her self-control for not completely bitching Arya out.

The phone goes silent for a minute or two, and Arya can hear muffled conversation in the background, mostly male voices – one that most definitely belongs to Bran – and then Willow comes back. "He says yes," she says. "Will that be all?"

"I… yeah," Arya says. "Thank you. Tell Bran thank you as well."

"Sure," Willow says curtly.

"And Willow, I'm s-" Arya starts, but Willow has already terminated the call.

Gendry, Loras, and Renly stare expectantly at Arya then, Gendry with far more trepidation on his face than the other two. Ever so slowly, Arya nods. "He said yes," Renly breathes, and again Arya dips her chin. "Holy shit, he said yes. We've got it. It's done."

"It's not done," Arya sighs. "We don't have proof for any of this."

"We've got the will. Isn't that enough?" Loras asks.

"No, because there's no blood proof that Joffrey and Tommen aren't Robert's," Gendry says, as he understands what Arya's getting at. "Joff is older than Bran, so he'd still get the company."

"Lucky for us, they keep the security cameras on in the office nonstop, so there should be footage of some of Cersei and Jaime's shenanigans in there," Arya says. "And I think Rickon told me once that they keep blood records in with all the family documents."

"Gross," Loras says, "why?"

"Because they're rich weirdos," Gendry offers.

"Paranoid rich weirdos," Arya says.

"As a rich weirdo, I'm moderately offended," Renly says, and Loras nods in agreement.

"Very different kind of weirdo," Arya points out, and turns to Gendry. "I'm going to need your help for this."

"For what?" he asks.

"We've got a mission," she says, and grins fiercely as she turns and heads for the door. "Thanks for all the help, Renly," she calls over her shoulder. "Gendry, come on!"

Gendry looks apologetically at the couple left in the room and, ever dutiful, darts after her.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Note: I am so sorry this took so long... this has been sitting, mostly finished, in my computer for the past couple of months and I just haven't had the time or the motivation to work on it. This was initially meant to be part of a much longer chapter, but then it just kept going and this was the best place to split it. I'm on spring break right now, so hopefully I'll be able to churn out the next (final!) chapter and the fluffy-as-all-get-out epilogue before school gets crazy again! As always, thank you for the support and for the few of you who got all up in my tumblr ask box to remind me to actually write this!**

Chapter Fourteen

Once they're outside and safely situated inside Gendry's car, Arya whips out Gendry's phone once again and starts tapping in a text. "What are you doing?" he asks.

"Calling for backup," she replies.

"Right. What backup? And backup for what? A 'mission' is not particularly descriptive," Gendry sighs.

"Well, first of all, I'm texting Willow because I know she's with Bran, Jojen, and Meera, if not more people. After that, I'm going to call in a few favors of my own, though I hate to make long-distance calls from a phone that isn't mine…" She frowns down at the phone, deletes a few letters, and then hits 'send.' "Hopefully this is innocuous enough." She tosses the phone to Gendry so that he, too, can read the message.

" 'We're infiltrating Baratheon Corp, gather the troops – that means you, Bran, and your Reeds, including whichever one you're not having sex with' – Arya!" Gendry looks up at her sharply, and she grins.

"Oh, come on, there's no way for me to know which one of them he's been fooling around with. My bet's on Jojen, but don't quote me on that. It's definitely one of them, though. Not that it's important. Satisfied?" She holds out her hand expectantly, and Gendry rolls his eyes, nods, and drops the phone into her outstretched palm. "Now, hopefully I can remember the numbers…"

She texts Jaqen first, partially because she trusts him to show up more than she does Aegon, and partially because she knows it'll feel very, very weird to text Aegon from Gendry's phone. The message to Jaqen is simple: "A man owes a girl a favor. Come to King's Landing as soon as possible."

She deliberates over the message to Aegon, though, wondering how best to get him to actually show up. She _knows _he'll show up if she pulls some "I miss you, I need you" bullshit, but she doesn't miss him, and though she does think she needs him, it certainly isn't in the way that he'd like. She settles on a simple, "It's Arya. Come to King's Landing?"

And then she waits.

And waits.

She understands that the different time zones are making this difficult, and that it's distinctly possible that either Jaqen or Aegon, or perhaps both, are asleep right now, but she highly doubts it. Soon enough, Willow texts back: "This is Bran damn it what is wrong with you. Also, yes, okay, infiltration or whatever. Also, Rickon is here now, he apparently hid with a biker gang."

Another text shortly follows that one, but from a different number: "This is Meera. He's not having sex with either of us, though he was totally making out with my brother about an hour ago."

Arya fires a quick text back: "Nailed it."

Meera is quick to respond. "Except no one got nailed :( They'll get around to it."

"I'm sure," Arya replies. "Gather your troops, hopefully we can get this over with within the next twenty-four hours. I'm waiting on a couple responses from Essos."

"Calling them in from far afield, I see," Meera replies, and Arya grins but doesn't respond, just sends a text to Willow's phone, intended for Bran.

"Bran: I totally called it," she sends, and gets only an angry face in response a few moments later.

It's another couple of minutes before she gets a response from Jaqen. "As a girl wishes," he says. "A man will be on the next plane to Westeros. Shall a man wear his own face?"

"No one will know you here anyways," Arya sends, groaning. Hells, even she hasn't seen all of Jaqen's actual face: she's only ever seen the half that he doesn't keep covered by that stupid mask.

"A girl would be surprised. A man will borrow a face," Jaqen sends back, and then that conversation, too, is over with.

Only Aegon has yet to respond, and Arya sits, staring at the phone and tossing it from hand to hand. Gendry watches her fidget for a while and then takes the phone from her hands. "It'll be fine," he says.

"I know that," she says. "Give me the phone."

"You're going to end up throwing it through a window and breaking it," Gendry sighs. "I'll hold onto it for now."

"You really don't want to do that," Arya says.

"Whose phone is this?" Gendry teases. "What are you waiting for?"

"I've got one person who hasn't responded, and it's a bit of a delicate situation, so…"

Gendry eyes her suspiciously, and then nods serenely, an all-knowing glint to his blue eyes. "It's that guy you were sleeping with," he says. "Griff? Right?"

Arya nods meekly and reaches for the phone.

"Hell no," Gendry laughs, "I want to watch this pan out."

"I played nice with Willow, damn it," Arya snarls, and reaches across him for the phone. "The least you could do is afford me the same courtesy!"

"It's a different situation, you said so yourself," Gendry laughs, and holds the phone just out of her reach. She leans over the gear-shift and almost all the way across his chest, and then, as she perches precariously on the compartment between the seats, loses her balance and falls into Gendry's lap.

"Now look what you've done," she snaps, and struggles to sit back up again while simultaneously snatching the phone from Gendry's hand. He tosses it lightly to his other hand and reaches it back over the passenger seat. With an exaggerated groan, she pulls herself back to her seat, purposely knocking the top of her head into his chin on the way so that he bites down hard on his tongue as he laughs. "Now is _not _the time," she mutters, and, as Gendry laments his bitten tongue, grabs the phone back from him.

There is still no response, and Gendry is now glaring at her with mild reproach. "I'm not sorry," she tells him. "You deserved it."

"Did not," he mutters, rubbing his sore chin.

"Did too," Arya insists, and childishly sticks out her tongue.

The phone finally vibrates again, and she flicks it open to view Aegon's message: "why", no punctuation.

"I need your help," Arya fires back, and within seconds Aegon responds, "with what."

"Does it change the answer?" Arya asks him.

"whose phone is this" comes next, and she rolls her eyes.

"Does THAT change the answer?" she asks then.

"answer the question" And then, a few moments later, "is it gendrys"

"I never told you about Gendry," Arya responds, confused. Gendry leans over her shoulder and watches her as her fingers fly furiously over the keys.

"so it is gendrys. fuck this im not going"

"For fuck's sake," Arya mutters under her breath, "he's such a fucking child." She starts typing out another message: "You're coming whether you like it or not."

"no im not" comes the response, mere seconds later.

Arya hates to do this to Gendry, but she really does need Aegon's help on this. "I'm sorry, Gendry," she says delicately, "but I'm going to have to make a long distance call."

"Like hell you are," he snaps, and tries to grab the phone from her.

"I am going to pay you back," she promises him, holding eye contact with him as she says it, and then she gets out of the car and slams the door behind her.

Aegon picks up the phone after only a few rings. "What," he says.

Arya rolls her eyes and practically snarls, "You know what."

"I'm not going," he says. "We're done."

"I'm not asking you to come over here and have sex with me, shit-dick, I'm asking you as a friend to come and help me out here. I mean, really. I can't explain myself right now, but I'm sure you could ask your dear tutor Tyrion to explain what's going on in King's Landing right now and he'd be happy to oblige. Point being, I need help over here and _believe me, _I would not be asking you if I didn't really need it," Arya says, and for a moment there is silence, only the sound of Aegon breathing into the other end of the phone.

"No," he says.

"Seriously?" Arya snorts. "You're seriously not coming because, now that I'm so much as hanging out with another guy, I'm worth nothing to you. Nice to know I'm such a valuable fucking person."

"No, Arya…" Aegon starts, but Arya cuts him off.

"No, you listen up, fuck-ass, because I need to tell you a thing or two. One, I am not just something you occasionally – and you should consider yourself very lucky that this ever even happened at all – get to stick your dick in. Two, you have no fucking right to get jealous about this because, again, you are _really damn lucky _I so much as kissed you. Three, when a friend, girl or guy or whatever the fuck else, texts you and then _calls you _to ask for help, you might want to consider actually giving it because clearly I'm fucking desperate. And four, and this is mostly irrelevant but you've really pissed me the hell off: use some damn punctuation in your texts! Question marks are not that hard!"

Again, there is silence, and Arya hears Gendry whistle appreciatively and then mutter "Damn…" from inside the car, but she ignores him and waits for Aegon's response.

"Well?" she says impatiently. "As much as I'd love to drag out this conversation even longer, long-distance calls are expensive, and this is not my phone. So I need some kind of answer from you, and I am asking you, for the last time, to _please _get your ass over to Westeros and help me do this because it's really important."

"What do you need me for?" Aegon asks, his voice soft, subdued, and Arya falters for a moment; he's always been so unabashedly abrasive. She shudders to think she might actually have broken him.

"I can't tell you that over the phone, but watch the news and I'm sure you can figure it out. Also, before you hear otherwise, yes, I am in fact alive. And another note: Jaqen's coming. He's not wearing his face. If you need help covering your super secret identity, talk to him," Arya suggests. "I'll plan things factoring you in as coming. Let me know quickly if that's not the case. Goodbye, Griff."

She can hear him starting to say something else as she hangs up the phone, but she doesn't particularly care what he might have had to say. So long as he comes, providing her with more fighting manpower, she'll be pleased, and, with any luck, that will be the last time that she ever has to deal with him.

She climbs back into the car to find Gendry staring at her as if she just brutally murdered a person right outside the car. "You…" he says slowly. "Holy shit. You are terrifying."

"You knew this," Arya says, and he nods once, dipping his chin ever so slowly downward. "You've seen me get pissed before."

He opens his mouth to say something, thinks better of it, and turns to look back out the windshield. Again, his lips part, and he fully intends to say something, anything, to the girl in his passenger seat, but then he merely shakes his head, shrugs, and turns the key in the ignition.

They are both silent as they drive down Renly's impossibly long driveway and head back out into the main city, but then Arya catches Gendry smirking, and he looks sideways over at her. "What," she drawls, and he chuckles.

"Shit-dick?" he asks.

"I almost went with dick-waffle," she admits, grinning. "Griff needs expletives to motivate him."

"Shit-dick," Gendry repeats, shaking his head again, and Arya punches him lightly on the shoulder.

Half an hour later, they successfully find a secluded parking space outside the Reeds' apartment complex. Arya makes to get out of the car, but Gendry catches her by the arm and she turns back toward him. "What?" she asks, and he studies her face for a moment before letting her go.

He wants to ask her if she's doing okay – she was unbelievably angry earlier, and while he's seen her upset before, she was always in the physical proximity of the person she was upset with, and her anger came out physically rather than verbally – but he knows that asking that would be stupid. Of course she isn't okay; her parents and oldest brother are dead, her sister is missing, presumably with the Lannisters, and while she must be comforted by the knowledge that her two younger brothers are alive, that's hardly any consolation.

He feels a strange sort of smugness, though; he knows he has never once angered Arya to the degree that Griff Young just did. He also knows, though, that if she'd called him from, say, Essos, and asked him to come help her, he would have done it. Even if Willow were there, even if he'd been working. He would have gone in a heartbeat. He remembers his reluctance to let her in when she showed up yesterday, but he knows he would have gone in the end. He would have asked her what was going on, or at the very least where she'd been for the past two years, and why she couldn't have contacted him sooner. But he would have gone.

And he certainly wouldn't have pulled any of this jealous bullshit.

Not that he doesn't feel a certain twinge of jealousy when he thinks of what Arya might have done with Griff that he is certain, based on the friendly nature of their reunion, he will never get to do. Nonetheless, he is just as happy to have Arya as a friend. He doesn't need anything more than that, so long as she's there.

Arya watches him carefully, cocks her head to the side, and then opens the car door. She doesn't remark on his strange behavior, only continues around the side of the car and stops outside his door. "Are you coming?" she asks, and he quickly gets out to join her.

They traipse up the back stairs toward Meera and Jojen's apartment, and knock quietly on the door, Arya with her head ducked under Gendry's armpit so as to remain mostly obscured from any security cameras in the area. Willow opens the door, and though an expression of utter pain crosses her face when she sees Arya, she still pulls the door wider open and ushers Gendry and Arya inside.

Gendry watches as Arya strides casually into the apartment and then, as she sees Bran seated by a blind-covered window, breaks into a run and wraps her arms around him. He has never seen her express such blatant familial affection. "Hi," he hears Bran say awkwardly, as he tentatively hugs his sister back.

Arya pulls back, looks her brother over, and then folds her arms. "I didn't want to ask over the phone, but how the hell did you get out?" Bran shrugs.

"Something weird about his dog," Jojen puts in, and Arya smirks and winks at her brother, who blushes and shakes his head.

"Yeah, yeah," Arya snickers. "Where's Rickon?"

"Asleep," Bran says. "I think he might have been awake for the past thirty-six hours."

Arya's eyebrows shoot skyward, and she nods once appreciatively. "You don't say. I'd say I ought to go in and see him, but if that's the case, then we should probably let the poor kid sleep."

Gendry's heart catches a little on the word 'kid.' He hasn't thought about it much, but the Starks – all the living ones that he knows of, anyway – are remarkably young, and the things they've seen… He has come to terms with all the things Arya's seen, and he doesn't even want to imagine the things she might have done in Essos, but Bran and especially Rickon are hardly more than children. Rickon is fourteen for the Maiden's sake, and he saw his mother and brother murdered before his very eyes?

Arya glances over at him, eyebrows quirked into a puzzled expression, and Gendry pulls himself from his reverie. Arya cocks her head to the side, and Gendry smiles weakly. "Come to think of it, Arya," says Bran, drawing her attention away from Gendry once again, "how long has it been since you slept?"

"I slept last night," she says, apparently a little too quickly for Bran's taste, since he snorts a little and raises one eyebrow. Arya rolls her eyes, punches him lightly in the arm, and insists, "I _did_."

"Sure you did," says Bran.

"She did," Gendry supplies helpfully.

"And you're such a reliable witness," mutters Willow from the next room over, and Gendry's face falls.

"I just slept, Bran. That's really all," Arya says forcefully.

"You look pretty rough," Bran says, "that's all I'm saying."

Arya studies him and then, utterly unannounced, digs her hand into Gendry's pocket and draws out his phone. "If Jaqen and Griff leave within the next hour – which they both should, there are enough flights out of Essos that they could both easily do that – then they should get here by midnight. It's about seven now, so…"

"So you should take the next five hours to sleep," says Bran as he lays one hand lightly on Arya's arm.

"Or, you know, actually plan what's going on," Arya counters.

"Or sleep so you can actually execute whatever you've got planned," Gendry says.

"You must have some plan already, otherwise you wouldn't have called in your bros from Essos so quickly," Meera puts in.

"Sleep," Gendry says, and Bran, Jojen, and Meera all nod in unison.

"You can take my bed," says Meera. "Rickon's monopolized our couch, and I think it's safe to say that Bran's got a claim to Jojen's…"

"Hey," warns Jojen, and Meera grins wildly, swamp-green eyes sparkling in the light of the setting summer sun.

"Seriously, though. Take my bed. You need it. I'm sure you've got some serious badassery planned for later, and we can't have you passing out in the middle of it," Meera says, her eyes still dancing but all the joviality gone from her voice.

"I'm durable," Arya says. "I've gone days without-"

"And how well did you do then?" Jojen asks. Arya falters for just a moment, and then begins to argue again, but Gendry places a hand over her mouth and pushes her in the direction of Meera's room.

"She'll sleep," Gendry says, and Arya struggles against him. He is distinctly aware that she could easily flip him over her shoulder and into the floor, and he takes it as a good sign that she has not yet done so.

"You don't get to decide for me," she mumbles into his hand.

"I know that," Gendry says. "I can stop you from making stupid arguments, though. And you _do _need rest. You've slept maybe five hours in the past 48, am I right?"

Arya glares up at him fiercely, but says nothing more, only pulls away from him and cuts into Meera's room, where it is dark and smells of incense. There is a dimly-lit fish tank in one corner, with a plastic, algae-encrusted lizard-lion perched on the stones at the bottom. A pair of fish swim lazily through the mock kelp, gaping, objectiveless, at Arya as she goes to sit on Meera's bed.

Hours later, when Gendry goes in to wake her, he finds her curled on her side, face lit only by the blue of the fish tank so that she seems more ghost than girl. He is hesitant to stir her; she looks so peaceful, and he hasn't heard her cry out in her sleep once this past five hours.

But Griff Young is standing in Meera and Jojen's kitchen, along with an older man with shaggy dark hair who looks like a cross between a young Robert Baratheon and Syrio who used to work at the Rec Center. And Gendry has absolutely no idea how to handle him.

He lays one hand gently on Arya's shoulder, and in a flash she's up with one hand pressed to his throat. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light, and he watches her pupils dilate and contract as her eyes focus on him. She pulls back almost instantly, eyes cast sheepishly to the floor. "Arya…" Gendry starts.

"Don't," she says, and then, almost as an afterthought, "I'm sorry."

"If you'd had a knife, you would have killed me," Gendry says pointedly.

"Good thing I didn't have a knife," Arya replies, and stands. "I assume Jaqen and Griff are here, and that's why you woke me?"

Gendry nods furtively, but grabs her as she tries to pass him. "Look, I know that you don't… you don't talk about what's happened. But what happened to you to make you so…" He doesn't really have the word to finish that sentence. He's not sure if Arya even knows what he's trying to say.

"Jumpy?"

"No," he says immediately. "Distrustful, maybe?"

"Do you seriously need to ask that?" Arya asks.

"Distrustful, but with serious martial arts training. I mean, really, for the Gods' sake, you're like a comic book superheroine but with trust issues," Gendry says, and Arya snickers darkly. For a moment Gendry thinks she's about to hit him, that he's angered her – Gods know, he certainly deserves it, for cutting at her so bluntly like that – but then she laughs a bit more openly, the grimness of her humor mostly replaced by actual happiness. Gendry finds himself reminded, almost eerily so, of the time they once spent together in the Rec Center.

"I even assembled a superhero team," Arya snorts. "Dear Gods. We're like the X-Men."

"Speaking of assembling," Gendry clears his throat nervously. "Your assembly has been mean mugging me for the past twenty minutes and I-"

"He's been here for twenty minutes? _They_ have been here for twenty minutes? And you didn't wake me?" Arya hisses, and wrenches free of his grasp. Any semblance of their old banter is gone just as quickly as it arrived.

She is out the door and into the hallway in mere seconds, leaving Gendry to trail sheepish and confused in her wake.

Twenty minutes later, with the game plan outlined and ready, they all assemble in the parking lot of Jojen & Meera's apartment complex, allocating themselves to separate cars. Arya sticks with Gendry, with Aegon, Rickon, and Jaqen prepared to cram into the backseat. Meera, Jojen, Willow, and Bran make their way over to Meera's Jeep. Arya, unsure for the first time since she even conceived of the most basic idea of the plan, swallows nervously, cracks her knuckles, and pulls open the passenger door to Gendry's car. "Well," she says, and looks at the three men and the boy before her. She can't help but remember how very young Rickon is, but she knows she would have insisted on being included at his age, and she knows how important family is not only to her but to Rickon as well. She cannot justify leaving Rickon out of this operation.

Operation is the only word Arya can think of to describe what they're about to do. It's a mission, it's a directive, it's a hard, set objective, but the word that Arya thinks fits it best is "operation." A surgery. Cutting out the bad and fixing whatever is wrong within something – in this case, the Baratheon Corporation and the remainder of the Stark family's entire life.

"Let's get this show on the road," Arya says, and with a slam of the car door they are off.


End file.
